


The Unconquerable Will

by Wynn



Series: Thesis and Antithesis [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Akechi Goro Redemption, Akechi Goro is Bad at Feelings, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Complicated Relationships, Drama & Romance, Enemies to Allies To Lovers, Epiphanies, Eventual Happy Ending, First Kiss, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Akechi Goro, POV Persona 5 Protagonist, Psychological Drama, References to Paradise Lost, Video Game Mechanics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-02
Updated: 2020-11-25
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:27:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 23,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25678066
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Wynn/pseuds/Wynn
Summary: Goro can't help but laugh. “I was such a fool.”AS ARE ALL WHO WANDER BLIND IN THE TYRANT KINGDOM. YOU ROSE IN REBELLION ONLY TO LEARN YOU’VE BEEN MADE IN THE TYRANT’S OWN IMAGE AND CAST TO THE DEPTHS OF HELL ONCE MORE. SHALL YOU LET YOURSELF FALL AND BE FOREVER LOST?*They are the wild cards, the willing tools of secretive and dangerous men. They have sacrificed themselves and each other in their pursuit of justice, neither escaping the interrogation room unscathed. Yet the hard lessons learned inform new choices when their paths cross again. They prompt new awakenings, of both themselves and each other, and rather than let themselves fall to the whims of fate and be forever lost, they choose to rebel. They choose themselves and each other, fate and fathers be damned.*An engine room AU featuring a new persona awakening, boss fight, showtime origin, and a Justice rank 10 romance route.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: Thesis and Antithesis [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1861957
Comments: 62
Kudos: 288





	1. The Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> So I wrote “Rage Against the Dying” to develop the 2/2 conversation between Goro and Akira a bit more. A comment on that fic spurred thoughts about Goro’s death (or “death” depending on your interpretation). Having played P5 and now P5R multiple times, I still think that moment was primed for Goro to have the same sort of Persona awakening that all the other Thieves did in the game, for him to finally and truly rebel against the shitty adult harming him. 
> 
> Hence, this fic. 
> 
> In addition to the epigraph, I’ve included a quotation from Paradise Lost in the early part of this fic. The end note will clarify when if you’re curious. It also has my other inspiration for Goro's new Persona. Also, the first section of Part One quotes from the engine room scene in the game. I try to focus more on Goro’s cognition, on what causes him to take a stand and truly rebel. I thought that, if he acted differently as he does in this fic, he would think differently, too. So let’s deep dive into Goro realizing how much Shido sucks! After that realization, everything is new. :)

The Unconquerable Will  
Part One: The Awakening

*

 _What though the field be lost?_  
_All is not lost; the unconquerable will,_  
_And study of revenge, immortal hate,_  
_And courage never to submit or yield:_  
_And what is else not to be overcome?_  
-Paradise Lost, Book One by John Milton

*

The gun is small, nondescript. A simple pistol. It’s a far cry from the flashier weapons wielded by some of the Phantom Thieves, machine guns and assault rifles and grenade launchers. It’s a far cry from the ray gun Goro wielded when he fought on the team, too, though this gun is nearly identical to the pistol he carried into the interrogation room to kill Akira. The sole difference is the lack of a silencer, yet hidden as they are in the Metaverse, in the engine room of Shido’s ship, there is no need for discretion.

Only death, rendered swiftly, brutally, and with a finality that will reach all the way to reality.

Goro looks at the gun and then at the cognition of himself that holds it. He had always wanted Shido to see him, to acknowledge his strength. Goro has no doubt that this cognition, if fought, would prove a formidable foe, but he realizes that its strength would not prove any admiration that Shido has for him, not with the cognition’s blank face, empty eyes, and flat voice. There is no life here, no vitality. There’s nothing, merely a hollow shell, as though Shido thinks that there is nothing in Goro that is worth knowing, much less remembering and respecting.

If Goro weren’t so exhausted from his fight against the Phantom Thieves, he would laugh. To be faced with how his father truly sees him is an ignominy nearly worse than that vision being used to kill him. 

At the thought, the cognition turns from Goro to stare down the Phantom Thieves. “I’ll deal with the rest of you later.”

The statement shocks Goro out of his ruminations. Twisting his head, he looks at the team. They are still arrayed before him, yet their easy stances are gone. Instead, they stand battle ready. Goro had marveled at their stamina in Sae’s Palace, the team ripping through the casino in just three days. Here, they’ve already gone two rounds with Goro, one against the Cleaner, and who knew how many before that as they searched the ship for the letters they need to access Shido’s inner sanctum. Yet here they are prepared to fight again while Goro struggles simply to stand.

The knowledge makes him grit his teeth.

“Captain Shido’s orders,” the cognition continues a few seconds later. “He has no need for losers. This just moves the plan up a little. He was going to get rid of you after the election anyway.”

It takes a moment for the significance of the statements to process. When it does, Goro whips his head around to find the cognition staring at _him_ , and not at the team. “What?”

“Did you truly believe you’d be spared after all the murders you undertook? Don’t tell me,” the cognition says, his voice now a perfect mocking mimic of Goro’s. “Were you actually feeling good about having someone rely on you for once?”

The question pricks at Goro, it digs deep beneath his skin. The truth, he’s found, often does. He _had_ exulted in his power, in having someone need it, in having someone need _him_ because of it, him, Goro Akechi, bastard, orphan, and disgrace. And not just anyone. His _father_ , who had cast both Goro and his mother aside like gutter trash. For all of Shido’s plans to rest on Goro was a reality so heady that Goro could barely breathe sometimes. But he thought that he had concealed it. He’d exulted in that, too, in his deception, in tricking the great and powerful Masayoshi Shido. 

Yet his father had known all about it, perhaps from the very beginning.

How he must have laughed at Goro for his naivete. 

How he must have sneered at his pathetic yearning son.

“Oh, by the way,” the cognition adds, expression flat once again, “the captain says it’s time you receive retribution for causing the mental shutdowns.”

Skull explodes at the revelation, ranting about Shido and his responsibility for the acts. Yet Goro laughs. How can he not? It’s all so funny. It’s all so terribly funny. Not the betrayal. Goro had no illusions about his father making the same contingency plan for him as he had for so many other people. No. Goro hadn’t deluded himself about that. But he’d deluded himself all the same. He’d deluded himself about himself. He thought that he’d be smart enough and powerful enough to get to his father first. 

He thought that he’d win. For once in his life, Goro thought that he’d win.

The vision had been too tempting to resist, and Goro had been lost in the illusion, had been swept up in the fantasy of revenge, in the dream of his triumph. It was all he could see, the prodigal son returning from the miserable depths to topple the wicked king. And because of it, he’d lost sight of reality, of the most basic truth of this wretched world, a truth that he’d known since the day his mother died. 

The world was cold and unforgiving to those like him. He was not a winner destined for triumph, not even with the power he’d been given by a mysterious god.

Goro was, and forever would be, a loser.

His father had made sure of that.

Anger sparks hot in his chest at the thought. It rouses his weary limbs and gives him the energy he needs to finally stand. 

To finally make a stand.

“I see. I was wondering how he’d protect himself if I used my power to tear through his Palace. Turns out you’re how.” Goro tilts his head to look at the cognition. The sight of it, this dull-eyed, vacuous _thing_ sent by his father to kill him, makes his blood burn. “So he’s making a puppet kill me. That sounds like something he’d do.”

“That’s right. I’ll do anything.”

Goro freezes at the tone, at the calamity it portends. 

“But look at yourself,” the cognition continues, his blank expression finally cracking, twisting into something crazed and scornful. “You’re the true puppet. You wanted to be acknowledged, didn’t you? To be loved. You’ve been nothing but a puppet from the very beginning.”

More unbearable truths, spewed before the last people that Goro ever wanted to know. Yet their reactions are distant from him, as if buffered by the bloody seas in which this ship sailed. He _has_ done anything. He’s hurt people, killed them, driven them mad. Necessary evils, he told himself. They had to be done so he could gain Shido’s trust, so he could get access to the inner sanctum of this ship and exact his revenge. Besides, he’d told himself again and again, the people Shido targeted were far from innocent, most of them as rotten as Shido himself and wholly deserving of his bloody retribution.

His gaze flits for a moment to Oracle.

Most of them.

Goro had gazed upon Kaneshiro, Okumura, the SIU Director, and more, all the others Shido used in his climb to power, and he had sneered at how their ambition had blinded them to the truth of Shido, to how they were no more than tools to him. Yet Goro had been just as ambitious as they had been. His ambition had simply lain with destruction, with razing Shido to the ground, rather than with using him to acquire more, yet it was ambition all the same and it had blinded him as it had the others. He had believed himself superior to them, even to Shido, Goro handpicked by a god and given powers beyond measure, yet Shido had still used him. He’d wielded Goro even more ruthlessly than he had anyone else, manipulating Goro into lying, stealing, blackmailing, betraying, and killing.

Goro looks at the cognition of himself, at the reflection of himself.

If his mother were still alive, she would be horrified at what he’s become.

But perhaps she’d always known. Perhaps she’d looked into Goro’s eyes when he was a child and had seen this outcome in his future, had seen him become a twisted continuation of his father. A classic case of nature over nurture, of fate over free will, set in immovable stone.

Goro grits his teeth at the thought.

One by one, the Phantom Thieves react to the cognition’s claims, some with shock, others with horror. Joker is silent as usual, but Goro knows that he listens. He always listens. What must he think now that he’s seen the truth of Goro, all of it, every ruthless, deplorable, and pathetic part? Is he appalled by the depravity? Is he exulting at the defeat? Or worse, does he pity Goro, does he look upon Goro with wide, sorrowful eyes?

Before he can bring himself to look, the cognition turns toward the team and glares. “What’s all this nagging about?” he sneers. “Want me to take care of you first?” 

Shadows burst into existence behind Goro, reinforcements meant to subdue the team, to frighten them and make them retreat, to leave Goro alone and vulnerable once again.

The silence stretches a few moments, and then the cognition continues. “You know what? I’ll let someone volunteer to take his place. Who knows, you might delay his death.”

For one second, one blindingly bright second, panic whites out the rage brewing in Goro. Would Joker do it? Would he volunteer himself for Goro? He’d be the only one, his savior complex as large as the Pacific Ocean in terms of breadth and depth. A person only had to look at the utterly ridiculous requests that the team fulfilled from that equally as ridiculous website. Cat thieves and school bullies, lovesick teenagers and video game cheaters. If the Thieves deemed all of them as worthy of salvation, how could they resist a tragedy like Goro Akechi? 

They couldn’t resist Kunikazu Okumura after all.

Goro waits, breathless, to see if they’ll fall for the ploy again, but the only response comes from Skull, a curse that echoes throughout the engine room. Yet the relief that Goro feels is shortlived as the crazed look returns to the cognition’s eyes.

“You guys are all about doing things for others, aren’t you? That’s just the same as me. I’m going to take _all_ the blame for our captain. I’ll die for him, too.”

The last is said simply, unbelievably so. Goro will die. Will, not could or might or should. Such ambiguities would make for an ineffective threat, after all. No one would snatch the subsequent offer if they believed there was even the smallest chance they could avoid such a grisly end. It’s a textbook play, one that Goro has used again and again on Shido’s behalf. 

And now Shido dares to use it against him.

The cognition turns toward him to proffer the illusion of salvation. “I’ll give you one last chance. Shoot them.”

And it’s all so funny. It’s all so terribly, horrifically funny. _This_ is all Shido can think of to deal with Goro. A pale imitation of Goro himself. The biggest threat to Shido’s grand plan looms, the Phantom Thieves _and_ Goro in active pursuit of him, yet Shido calls on a cognition of _Goro_ to deal with it. 

Was it simple arrogance? Did Shido truly think that Goro was so deficient that he’d fall for his own tricks? Or was he simply stupid? Was he incapable of thinking of anything other than using Goro to deal with his problems? After all, that’s what he’s been doing the last few years. Relying on Goro. It had been Goro who approached Shido and offered the use of his powers. And it had been Goro who caused the mental shutdowns to destabilize people’s faith in the government, to send them searching for an alternative in Shido. And it had been Goro who used his powers to eliminate any threats to Shido, from the Shujin principal to the SIU Director to the most potent threat of all: the Phantom Thieves. And it had been Goro who infiltrated the team, who arranged for the arrest of their leader, who walked into the interrogation room to _kill_ their leader and clear the path to victory for Shido, yet Shido still saw him as a mindless puppet, as someone stupid enough to fall for his own tricks, as someone barely worth knowing, much less remembering and acknowledging and respecting.

 _This_ is who Goro let manipulate him. _This_ is who Goro let use him. _This_ is who Goro let corrupt him. _This_ is who Goro killed for, who he killed Akira for. And _this_ is who Goro was going to die for. Because he was. He’d been willing to die to take down Masayoshi Shido. Goro had thought the exchange equivalent, his life and Akira’s for Shido’s.

Goro laughs again. “I was such a fool.” 

_AS ARE ALL WHO WANDER BLIND IN THE TYRANT KINGDOM._

The words ring through his head. Goro knows this, has been through this twice before, first with Loki, born from his howling heart and hatred of the world, and then with Robin Hood, born from his need for a shining charade in order to execute his revenge. 

But the charade failed, and Goro has a new need now, born from a new self.

 _CAST FROM PARADISE_ , his Persona continues. _DEEMED UNWORTHY OF ITS GRACE AND MADE TO WALLOW IN THE DEPTHS OF HELL. YOU ROSE IN REBELLION ONLY TO LEARN YOU’VE BEEN MADE IN THE TYRANT’S OWN IMAGE AND CAST TO THE DEPTHS ONCE MORE._

_SHALL YOU LET YOURSELF FALL AND BE FOREVER LOST?_

The pain is dizzying, but it is pain that Goro has endured his entire life, born from illusions being shattered and innocence being lost. It is pain that has to be endured. Otherwise despair awaited as Goro learned with his mother. Disappointment and then despair and then death.

Goro will not allow himself to die, too. Not like this.

Not because of Shido and certainly not for him.

“No,” Goro says as he takes off his helmet. Hellfire already ripples beneath his feet, colder than the world and just as cruel. The new mask forms on his face, searing into Goro so that he’ll never forget this pain again, so that he’ll never lose himself again. He lifts his hands and spares one last glance at the horrid cognition of himself. “I’ll never be anyone’s puppet again.”

Then Goro rips the mask off. He laughs at the pain, at the wild rush of power that sweeps over him. It explodes from him, blowing back the shadows that the puppet summoned.

 _I AM THOU_ , his Persona says. _AND THOU ART I. THE MIND IS ITS OWN PLACE, AND IN ITSELF CAN MAKE A HEAVEN OF HELL AND A HELL OF HEAVEN. SO RISE AND RAISE HELL AND MAKE A RUIN OF THIS FALSE PARADISE!_

The garb of the jester burns away, as does that of the noble prince. Pure black envelops his legs, slim pants tucked into tall boots. Gleaming chain mail covers his chest, reaching down to his hips in a sharp ragged line. Steel pauldrons protect his shoulders and vambraces his arms. His gloves are as wicked as those that he wore with Loki, as is his helmet, thin jagged horns curving up high into the air. Goro can’t stop the fierce grin that forms as the last piece falls into place, his sword sitting heavy in his hand, vicious steel ready to cut down his foes.

Clutching it fast, Goro howls, “Come to me! Decimate my enemies, _Lucifer!_ ”

From his heart, Lucifer rises, stripped of the distortion that skewed Robin Hood and Loki into such fantastical shapes. Stripped of distortion, stripped of illusion, stripped of everything save for a supple black cloth that encircles his waist. The Phantom Thieves gasp as Lucifer shakes out his wings. His feathers gleam iridescent in the engine room, shining bright in the darkness. He holds a twisted crown in his left hand and a broken chain in his right, and Goro knows him instantly, he knows Lucifer’s strength, knows which ability he should call to devastate his foes.

“Morning Star.”

The ship vanishes and the dark sky appears overhead. Countless stars circle in the heavens. One flares bright before shooting a bolt of almighty energy straight at the puppet. The power explodes upon impact, shredding the shadows and knocking the puppet to its knees. More will be needed to defeat it, but Goro has more now.

He has an entire team.

Joker calls out orders as the engine room rematerializes. “Mona, Queen, get ready with healing and defense buffs. Oracle, analyze the shadow as soon as you’re able and see if you can spot any weaknesses. Everyone else, be ready to be subbed in. Heal if you need to and be sure replenish your stamina. And Crow?” 

Goro glances at Joker and finds his lips curved into a small maddening smile.

“It’s nice to finally meet you.”

There’s no time to respond, the puppet dissolving into its true form. A macabre marionette faces them, one bearing Goro’s bland Detective Prince smile and wide, empty eyes. Long limbs twist at unnatural angles; they dangle from four rattling chains. The chains are held by a dark shadow that looms behind the puppet, distinguished only by a glinting pair of glasses and a nasty grin.

Goro clutches his sword, hatred burning hot in his heart.

Joker steps to the end of the line opposite Goro. “Oracle, is that a separate cognition?”

Necronomicon takes flight, its lights flashing as Oracle scans their foe. “I don’t think so. But the chains all have different signatures. I think you’ll need to take them down before you can get to Puppetkechi.”

“Got it.”

Mona takes the spot beside Goro. A second later, Zorro appears and Goro feels the cool rush of healing magic wash over him. Johanna roars into existence next. The air shimmers before the team as Queen sets a shield in place to defend against the puppet’s attacks. At the far end of the line, Joker calls on Arsene. His wings unfurl, black as night. Goro feels their tips brush against Lucifer’s, and he shivers at the sensation. He shivers again as Joker uses one of his ill-gotten items to boost the team’s attack power.

Preparations complete, they wait.

Across the battlefield, the chains leashing the puppet clank. A mask slides over its face, covering the bland smile with a snarling howl. Then it attacks, gaming the system to unleash two in a row, a fierce physical blow followed by a rattling gun strike. 

The defense shield blocks most of the damage, allowing the team to go on the offensive, to seek out the puppet’s weaknesses. Goro resists the lure of Morning Star, switching instead to Lucifer’s bless attack. The first chain falls to the element, yet Goro has no chance to pass the baton. Another twist of the cognition by the puppet and its shadow. Zorro’s wind magic proves ineffective, as does Arsene’s curse, yet a bright nuclear attack from Johanna knocks down a second chain.

But then chains clank again and the puppet shivers as a new mask slides over the top of its face. Weeping sorrow replaces howling rage, bringing with it two new attacks. The first is fear. The status glances off of Goro and Mona, yet Queen and Joker are struck. In any other fight, Goro would not worry. Shaking statuses is another one of Joker’s mystifying skills. But he can only do it if he has time, and in this fight, against this foe, he doesn’t. The puppet has already shown that it doesn’t play by the usual Metaverse rule of one turn per combatant. And why would it? Rules mean nothing to Shido, so they wouldn’t to his creation either. 

The follow up, a vicious psychokinesis blast, knocks Queen and Joker flat. Queen takes the blow the hardest, Johanna vulnerable to the element even with the defense shield. Mona can heal her the next go round, but the combination assures that she’ll be knocked down again and again and will need healing again and again.

From across the line of engagement, Goro catches Joker’s eye.

“I know,” he says around a grimace. “Keep attacking, whatever you think is best. Mona, heal us. Queen, extend the defense, and I’ll sub you out. Noir, get ready to replace her.”

At the chorus of assents, Goro turns back to the puppet. Should he bypass weaknesses altogether and unleash Morning Star once more? No element is stronger than almighty, and with two of the chains down, Goro could probably eliminate them. But they might regenerate if they aren’t all taken out together. Such cognitive quirks existed in the Metaverse. He could use the fire magic Lucifer wielded in addition to bless and almighty. Or Goro could summon Loki, who still lurked in his heart. Loki had almighty magic like Lucifer, but he also had physical, gun, and curse skills. Goro sets aside the first two. If the puppet used them, it likely wouldn’t be weak to them. Arsene proved that curse was ineffective. So almighty, the strongest element of all, or fire, an untested one, or bless, a proven weakness?

Goro deliberates another moment and then says, “Hellfire.”

Whirling blue flames engulf the marionette, striking all of the chains. The first two weaken even more and a third falls. Goro wants to keep to the offensive, to find the last weakness and raze the puppet and its shadow to the ground. But the team follows Joker’s orders, Mona healing them all and Queen boosting their defense. It’s a prudent move. In any other place, Goro would respect it, but prudence had never dictated him on the battlefield. His Persona had never had healing magic or support skills. Only various tools to strengthen his assault and debilitate his enemies.

At the end of the line, Joker changes his Persona. An absolutely ghastly bear appears above him, skulls in its stomach and blood dripping from its fangs. Joker doesn’t do anything with it, instead switching out Queen for Noir, so Goro assumes that the beast must be resistant to psychokinesis.

Yet the action is for naught as the chains clank again and the sorrowful mask disappears. The new mask is marked by a slack mouth and wide, empty eyes. A faint drop of dread drips through Goro at the sight of it. The sensation grows when the shadow looks directly at Goro and smiles, but there’s nothing he can do except brace himself for the new attack. 

In the next moment, he’s lost.

*


	2. The Battle

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Goro and the Phantom Thieves continue their battle against the cognition.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, this has been a month. I thought I'd be finished with the whole fic by this point, not just part two. But at least I've finished part two. Fingers crossed the muse, my job, and the world are kind for a relatively speedy part three.
> 
> I made a slight edit to the first part of the fic to add a detail about baton passing in the fight (as the puppet has gamed the system to give it two turns in a row, it’s also overridden the ‘one more’ system for the team). I hadn’t realized that I’d deleted it in my editing. Boo to my brain. There's a bit of misogynistic language in this chapter (the Shido portion of the Goro cognition referring to Goro's mother as a whore). 
> 
> Thank you to everyone who was kind enough to leave a comment on the first part. I hope you enjoy part two!

The Unconquerable Will  
Part Two: The Battle

*

This time Akechi won’t lose. This time he’ll kill that insufferable bastard, and there won’t be any miracles to save him. Akechi will kill _all_ of them, every last one of the Phantom Thieves, as well as anyone else who stands in Shido-san’s way. He’ll kill himself, too. It’s all he’s good for, after all, killing and dying.

Just like his useless whore of a mother.

Turning toward Joker, Akechi summons his gun.

“Shit! _Shit!_ Oracle!”

Joker stares back at Akechi, unfazed by Skull shouting or by the gun in Akechi’s hand. And that infuriating calm, even now with his death nigh, makes Akechi want to drop his gun, leap across the battlefield, and shove his sword deep into Joker’s face. He wouldn’t be calm then. He would finally be begging Akechi for mercy. The image tantalizes, but Akechi resists it. He’ll do it right this time. He won’t fail Shido-san again, not when he’s graciously given Akechi another chance.

“I’m trying!” Oracle cries. “Brainwash makes the cognition go all wonky. It’s hard to parse.”

What’s hard to parse is how the Phantom trash outsmarted him in the interrogation room. But it’s no matter. Joker won’t survive this time. Akechi will make sure of it.

Lifting his gun, he takes aim right at those lying eyes.

“Well, make it parse!” Pather yells. 

Necronomicon whirs. But Joker draws in a breath and opens his mouth, and the rest fades away. It fades away for Akechi. There is only him and Joker, the detective and the thief, the winner and the loser.

The killer and the killed.

Heart racing, Akechi waits. Perhaps Joker really will beg this time.

“Noir, no matter the damage, cure Crow first.”

Face twisting, Akechi fires. He fires again and again, emptying his clip into Joker, shooting first at his head and then his heart. There’s no blood this time, just a soft grunt as Joker staggers back. But he doesn’t fall and he doesn’t die, and Akechi hates him for it. He hates him, he hates him, he hates him, he hates him, he hates him, he-

Goro gasps as the grip on him vanishes, Lucifer finally managing to cure him of the ailment. The room around him is in chaos. Skull and Fox are yelling at Oracle. Queen is trying to reach Noir, who stares at Joker in wide-eyed distress. Panther’s shrieking at a brainwashed Mona, who does what Goro did not and launches himself across the battle line to stab Joker with his cutlass. The defense shield from Queen allows Joker to withstand the attack, but he’s clearly in pain, slumped over and weak.

And the fool told Noir to cure Goro first. 

Goro means to tell her that she doesn’t need to, that Lucifer has cured him and can cure him of all ailments, that she should take her turn to heal Joker instead, but his attention is drawn away by the shadow behind the puppet as it begins to laugh. It sounds so much like the real Shido that Goro clenches his hands. He’s always hated that laugh, that low condescending chuckle and the smug security it entailed. Shido high above the masses, safe in his golden tower, peering down at the pathetic weaklings and delighting in their misery. More than once, Goro had fantasized about laughing that laugh as he drove a knife straight into Shido’s heart.

The urge comes upon him again as the shadow yanks on the chains and makes the puppet dance. Not for an attack. Just because Goro’s watching. Just because he can. 

“Once a puppet,” it says, “always a puppet, Akechi.” Like the laugh, the voice sounds like Shido, too. Perhaps a bit deeper, a bit more threatening, Shido as he sounds to himself in his own mind and empty heart. A beat later, it continues. “You think you can cut your strings and become a real boy? All you did was change masters.” 

The shadow glances at Joker then. The implication is clear, clear enough to compel Goro to look despite his racing heart. Joker is still slumped, still weak, and still in pain, but he’s glaring at the shadow, the hard line of his jaw clear in the harsh light of the engine room.

“And he already knows how to pull your strings, too. ‘Whatever you think is best.’ As if this doll can think.” The shadow pulls on one of the puppet’s hands, smacking it against the puppet’s face. A hollow thunk echoes throughout the engine room, as if nothing exists in the puppet’s head to absorb the blow. “If he could think,” the shadow continues, “he would have seen the truth about me a lot sooner. And he wouldn’t have failed as often as he had either. Three times he tried to kill you, but even with my guiding hand just now, he fails.”

Another thunk, the puppet’s hand smacking against its empty eyes and slack mouth, the signs of its brainwash, of Shido’s guiding hand. Rage sparks hot within Goro again. Dispatching his gun, he calls for his sword and points it at the shadow. “If you have something to say about me, say it to me and not to him.”

The shadow doesn’t even spare Goro a glance. “Losers have no place in this world. Or in this conversation.” Dismissal made, the shadow focuses once more on Joker. “A piece of advice, kid. Cut your losses while you can. This doll is defective. It always has been. His mother’s influence, you see. She was always weak. It’s no wonder she killed herself.”

Noir gasps, as does Panther. Skull curses, as loudly as he had before. It drowns out whatever Fox says, but Goro catches the anger in his tone. In a distant part of his brain, he marvels at their reactions, at their clear ignorance of his life. He’d told this to Akira and Futaba after Medjed fell, bartering this truth about his mother for their sympathy. He had needed to ingratiate himself with them so that his doomed plan could proceed. He’d thought they’d tell the others, but apparently they hadn’t.

Later, if one exists for him, Goro might examine the reason why. Now he takes a step beyond the battle line toward the shadow. “Shut up. Shut _up_. Don’t you dare say a word about her.”

“See what I mean?” the shadow says to Joker. “He tries to act calm and composed, but that’s all it is. An act. He’s always been emotional. It’s what makes him easy to manipulate.” The shadow jerks the chains again and makes the puppet do a frantic, flailing dance. “But you already knew that, didn’t you? ‘Whatever you think is best.’ ‘Cure him first.’ Make him feel like he’s special, and he’ll do anything for you. Especially for a boy as striking as you.”

Goro freezes at the implication. He hadn’t been aware that his father would know anything about him, or care to know anything about him, beyond his use as a Metaverse assassin. But of course he’d want to know. Anything to give him power over another person. 

Even this.

Especially this.

Gut churning, Goro watches as this shadow from his father smiles. “You see, little Goro here-” 

It stops abruptly, its smile vanishing as it goes still. Twisting his head, Goro finds Joker mostly upright, his arm outstretched and his gun in hand. “Stop talking.”

If Goro hadn’t seen Joker speak just now, he may have doubted that it had been Joker at all. Goro has never heard his voice sound this cold or angry, not even against the vilest of the shadows that they fought in Mementos. Not even against _Goro_ , despite all that he has done.

Goro stares, transfixed, at this peek behind the placid curtain.

Across the battlefield, the shadow begins to laugh. “Well, well, isn’t this-”

Joker fires, not at the shadow, but at the wall, at one of the pipes that runs alongside it. The bullet pierces the metal, and water and steam explode from the puncture, drenching the shadow. Joker shifts his gun toward it as it sputters and coughs. “I told you to stop talking.” 

Even with his mask, Goro can see his glare, and it’s not a mirror exactly to the rage that roils in his own soul, but it is a recognition. It is a revelation. For so long, Goro had hated Akira for his calm demeanor. The world had spit on him, kicked him down, and dragged him through the mud, yet Akira never cracked. He never sneered. He never raged. He faced the world with a ceaseless composure that infuriated Goro, who felt himself slowly fraying at the seams. 

But that composure was a facade, just as much a mask as Goro’s pleasant Detective Prince. How could he have not seen this? How could a force as fierce as Joker be born from anything less than a howling tempest, from a whirlwind of chaos and spite?

Pulse racing, Goro watches Joker turn from the shadow, dismissing it and its pathetic sputtering, to look at him. “What now?”

Goro blinks at the question. “What?”

“This is your fight, Crow. What do you think I should do?”

It takes a moment for the significance to process. When it does, Goro lowers his arm. All he can do is stare because, upon first glance, the question implies doubt about what to do. Yet Joker has never faltered in a battle, and he isn’t now for this is not doubt. This is decisiveness. This is a deliberate shifting of control, Joker placing the reins of the fight in Goro’s hands, rather than his own where they’ve always remained.

The strategy behind such an action is clear. If your enemy boasts about its ironclad control, you counter with freedom. If the shadow says you’re also manipulating Goro, you make a show of _not_ manipulating him. From anyone else, Goro would suspect the very manipulation that this show tries to deny. Yet such underhanded tactics aren’t Joker’s style. Even Goro can admit this. Joker conceals his thoughts and rarely reveals his feelings, but that very suppression means that his interactions with others are dictated by _their_ desires, not by his. Only on the battlefield does his will dominate. It had irritated Goro during his short stint with the Phantom Thieves, having to obey Joker’s orders.

Orders, he realizes now, that Joker hasn’t given him in this fight.

From the very start, he’s encouraged Goro to act freely. The only order that related in any way to Goro had been Joker telling Noir to cure his brainwash, to allow him to act freely once more.

And now this.

Akira had said they were rivals, but Goro had never believed him. He never believed that _Akira_ believed this. Despite thinking that Akira was not smart enough to successfully lie to him, he had still thought that Akira thought he was better than Goro, that he was superior. Special Joker with his special powers and his special friends and his special life. But Goro had been blind here, too. What Akira said, he meant. To him, they were rivals, equal yet opposite.

Even now when Akira knows everything about him, the whole horrid truth.

Even now he looks at Goro and finds something worth listening to.

He sees someone worth fighting for. 

The riot within Goro quickens and quiets at the revelation. His thoughts slow and his heart races. He stares at Joker, trembling and taut, and the pressure builds. It builds and it builds and it builds and then the dissonance within Goro bursts into something hot and fierce and bright. And despite Goro’s mask, despite the distance that spans between them, somehow Joker sees, and his lips tilt into one of his small maddening smiles.

Breathless, Goro lifts his arm and points his sword at the shadow. “I think you should help me tear that thing apart!”

The cognition changes, the ship disappearing for a dark and rainswept rooftop. There is only him and Joker standing beside him and their enemy across the way. The rightness of the configuration sinks into Goro’s bones, and he can only laugh, loud and wild, a far cry from the soft chuckle of the pleasant Detective Prince. And such a laugh at such a time for such a feat as this one requires Loki. He bursts forth in a swirl of dark energy that Goro absorbs into himself. The power sizzles along his nerves, boosting his attack but shredding his defense. It’s no matter. Goro has sacrificed so many others to attain his victory, he can sacrifice himself, too.

Without another word, he charges across the roof. Joker swings into seamless action behind him, using his grappling hook to fly from one side of the roof to the other, drawing the shadow’s eyes away from Goro. And why wouldn’t he? He’s the only thing worth watching on this godforsaken ship. And he’s here beside Goro. He’s fighting with Goro. He’s backing up Goro, not one of his little friends even though Goro knows that they, too, are capable of feats like this. He saw it when he fought with the team, the various permutations, Panther and Fox, Mona and Noir, Skull and Queen.

Yet Joker partnered with none of them.

Only Goro.

“Crow!”

Joker swoops in then, all fluid grace, to land a brutal strike at the first chain. Then he soars back into the air, flipping up and over Goro in a lithe little arc that snatches the breath from Goro’s chest. Yet Goro doesn’t let himself linger on the image. He has a foe to fell and a clear path in front of him, so he lifts his sword and launches himself into the air. Only then does the shadow realize the truth of the play, but it’s too late for it to dodge, much less for it to counter. All it can do is watch, horrified, as Goro approaches, as he slams into the puppet and unleashes all the fury churning within him in vicious nonstop blows. Chains snap. Limbs crack. The ship is drenched in red, in blood and rage, and it’s not enough, not nearly enough. The puppet still lingers and the shadow endures.

“You. Don’t. _CONTROL ME!_ ”

With a final roar, Goro strikes clean through the puppet, tearing it apart. The momentum flings him across the roof, far from the shadow’s grasp. When he stops, Joker is there, landing behind him, yet Goro doesn’t need to turn, he doesn’t need to guard against the wolf at his back, for this wolf howls with him. The proof is all around them. This is their creation, his and Joker’s, born from the synthesis of their souls. 

Two sides, same coin.

Prodigal sons.

A murder of crows.

There is no _one_. Not anymore. Goro doesn’t stand by himself. Joker stands with him, yet rather than chafe, rather than prove his inadequacy, this partnership proves his worth, proves that he’s worth fighting with, that he’s worth fighting for, fate and his father be damned.

Joker fires, a single shot that decimates their enemy. The shadow dissolves, as does the puppet, leaving only the cognition when the engine room reappears. The sight of it battered and bruised sends a thrill of triumph shooting through Goro. 

It stares at Goro a moment, hatred burning hot in its eyes, then, in true Detective Prince fashion, it covers the rage with a faint, false smile. “Shido-san was right about you. You really will do anything to get your revenge. But what you should have done, Goro Akechi, was heal him.”

The cognition lifts its hand then and aims its gun at Joker. Queen gasps and Skull curses again. Goro understands their reactions. The danger of the moment is undeniable. Joker still reels from the back to back attacks from Goro and Mona. Even if his current persona is strong against guns, the cognition has not one, but two, moves at its disposal.

More than enough to finish the job.

Goro clenches his sword at the thought. How many times will this scenario unfold, some version of him shooting some version of Akira? Is death the only end to their path? It’s the one Goro had wanted, the one he had sought in the interrogation room and here, too, believing it would set his path aright. Yet he feels no inkling of that desire now. It had burned with the rest of his delusions. Goro doesn’t want Joker to die. He doesn’t want _Akira_ to die. He wants-

Goro wants- 

Turning his head, he looks down the battle line to Joker. He’s hunched again and his breathing is labored, but those are the only concessions that he gives to his weakened state or to the threat to his life. He glares at the cognition with a flat, cold fury that sends a shiver down Goro’s spine. How could he ever have thought that the milquetoast sitting in the interrogation room, the one that shivered at the sight of his gun, was the real Akira? How? He’d truly been blind, about that and about-

“Oracle!” Fox shouts, breaking Goro from his thoughts. “Do something! Please!”

From his time with the team, Goro has learned not to underestimate Oracle. But even she has her limits. Perhaps with more time she could hack even death, but not now. And while Oracle can’t, Goro knows that Noir won’t, the bond between her and Akira too new and tenuous. Mona would, but he’s still brainwashed. And the strange rules that govern the Metaverse prevent the rest of the team from doing anything but watching in helpless horror.

The only one who can save Akira from Goro is Goro himself.

The irony would make him laugh, but he has no time, the cognition firing. Goro drops his sword and races down the battle line. His movement draws Joker’s eye. Their gazes lock, and there’s no fury in Akira’s eyes now, no cool, unflappable calm. Just shock and a growing dread as the intent behind Goro’s action becomes clear.

Goro slams into him in the next moment, knocking him clear of the battlefield. The bullet meant for him hits Goro instead. The pain is excruciating, the bullet shredding Goro’s already shredded defense. He hears the cognition snarl, hears the gun fire again. The second bullet pierces him, punching the breath from his chest. Goro staggers back, the world wavers and warps, and for a second, he thinks this is it, this is when he dies. He would say it’s poetic, dying for the man he was ordered to kill, but Goro doesn’t believe in poetry. He believes in justice, and this is just, dying for Akira, or it would be except that the ship doesn’t fade and Goro doesn’t fall. He clings to life by the slimmest of threads. 

Somehow he endures.

“Crow!”

Akira’s call rings throughout the engine room, yet Goro doesn’t look at him or at the rest of the Phantom Thieves who clamor around him. Instead, he looks at the cognition and feels a small bit of satisfaction at the absolutely unhinged expression on its face. 

“What is wrong with you?!” it bellows. “Killing him is what we’re supposed to do! It’s our _fate!_ ”

The last makes Goro sneer. “I decide my fate. Not anyone else. And what I decide,” he continues as he pushes himself upright, as he calls his sword to hand, “is to kill you.”

“You can’t! Not on your own. And that’s all you’ve ever been! It’s all you ever _will_ be! All this-” The cognition waves his gun at the team and then at Akira- “Won’t last, and you know it. You’re defective, a bastard son of a whore. Nobody has ever loved you, and they never-”

“Ultra charge!”

Power rushes through Goro, clearing the haze of pain from his mind and sharpening his sight. He glances at Necronomicon, he can’t not, the anger that he heard in Oracle’s voice, much less her help just now, too shocking for him to refrain.

“ _You_ …” The cognition grinds the word, spitting it out between vexed teeth. Goro glances back at it and finds it glaring up at Necronomicon. “You just signed his death warrant.” Mona thrashes beside Goro then, proof of the continued hold that the cognition has on him. If Goro can’t kill it with his turn, it’ll use Mona and his supercharged, brainwashed strength to destroy him. 

“You’re wrong.”

Akira’s declaration is soft, but it brings the chaos of the engine room to a standstill. He makes his way back to the battle line, his steps slow but steady, and while his tone might be soft, his gaze certainly isn’t. “You said that Crow’s alone, but he isn’t. If he falls, we’ll bring him back.”

The cognition’s sneer is a mirror of Goro’s from moments before. “You might be able to bring him back, but they can’t bring you back, can they?” 

Akira doesn’t respond. Neither does anybody else. The silence is deafening, broken only by the cognition’s mad laughter. 

“You can break this world in every way imaginable,” it says, “you can bring them back again and again, but you can’t survive a kill shot, can you? That’s why he protected you. Isn’t it? _Isn’t it?_ ”

Still no one responds. They can’t. It’s the truth they all recognize on some level, even if it’s never been discussed aloud. Akira can wield dozens of personas, he can down any enemy with a single shot from his gun, he can swap out combatants at his whim and resurrect them at his will.

But he can’t conquer death, not if it’s his.

The cognition laughs again as it turns back to Goro. “This is the price you pay for being so damn sentimental. You used up your one chance to protect him. You can’t do it again.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Goro says. “I told you. I’m going to kill you.”

“You’re not strong enough, not even with that girl’s extra power boost. You’re weak. You’re-”

Whatever he intends to say next is cut off as Skull groans behind Goro. “‘Effin shit, man. Do you _ever_ shut up?”

“It’s doubtful,” Fox murmurs. “Words are all he has left.”

“He might not be wrong,” Queen says. “I’ve been analyzing the fight, and Crow’s success is not one hundred percent guaranteed.”

“That’s true,” Noir says as she turns toward Queen, “but this is Crow we’re discussing. If anyone has something hidden up his sleeve, it’s him.”

Panther hums in acknowledgement. “Secret evil dad. Secret plan to kill his evil dad. Secret extra persona. Secret _other_ extra persona. And then there’s all the outfits. _I_ didn’t get a new one with Hecate, but Crow’s on his third right now. That’s _so_ not fair.”

“Yeah,” Oracle says, “and Joker has, like, a gazillion and a half personas, but he keeps wearing the same dumb pants with all of them. Crow’s definitely got something sneaky going on.”

“What they mean,” Akira adds, his mouth curving into a smug little smile, “is that you shouldn’t underestimate Crow.”

And how Goro hated this, the inane chatter of the Phantom Thieves. It was proof of their bonds with each other, bonds that Goro didn’t share, that he _couldn’t_ share, not with them or anyone. At least he thought that he couldn’t, deluded as he’d been about everything. Now the chatter doesn’t vex him as much as it had before. 

Perhaps because of how much it vexes the cognition.

It peers at them, gaze flitting between them like an irate hummingbird. The gaze lands at last on Goro, where it churns and seethes. “Killing me,” it hisses, “won’t make you any less of his son. Neither will killing him.”

To that, Goro arches a brow. “And nothing you say will spare your pathetic existence. So shut up and die. _Lucifer!_ ”

His persona appears, blooming tall and strong above Goro. The cognition eyes it, wary, and Goro takes a moment to savor its fear. Then he draws in a breath and says, “Concentrate.”

Power rushes through him again. The feeling exhilarates even after so many years. He’d been so powerless for so long, at the mercy of a world that spit on him for situations beyond his control, for the circumstances of his birth, for his father leaving and his mother dying. And he had nearly lost the power he found, wasting it on his wretch of a father and his own quest for revenge.

But no longer.

The cognition blinks twice at Goro before loosing a stilted laugh. “Is that it? Were you- were you _tricking_ me?” It laughs again, steadier this time, confident in its delusion. “I’m going to enjoy-”

“Morning Star.”

In the second before the ship vanishes and the heavens appear above, Goro sees the cognition’s eyes go wide. He understands the reaction. This side of the battlefield is riddled with notions of fairness, one action per turn, equal for everyone. Even the _one more_ system that the Thieves have perfected has its limit. Yet Goro has spent far more time on the other side of the battlefield. He is well acquainted with the cognitive tricks one needs to game the system, he knows how to change the rules in his favor, and he is more than practiced at being a double agent.

Some would say that it’s his inherent skill.

The supercharged energy decimates the cognition, burning it to ash. If only it was enough to burn this entire ship, to break through the bounds of the Metaverse and burn his father where he stood. But soon Goro will do both. He’ll raze this ship and bring his father to ruin, too, just not quite in the way he imagined.

The primary difference catches his eye. Akira’s staring at the cognition. He doesn’t exult in its destruction as Goro does, yet he doesn’t shy away from it either, regarding it steadily as its final few wisps wither and fade. 

Then he looks at Goro. 

Akira stares as steadily at him as he had the cognition. And it’s always been heady, Akira’s stare, right from the first moment Goro beheld it across the television studio. Akira looks at him as no one has ever looked, he looks at Goro and _sees_ , without delusion or disdain. And Goro craved it and hated it, how that cool grey gaze pried him open and peered inside, sifted through his secrets and prompted Goro to reveal more. Now all is revealed, yet Akira still stares.

“Joker!”

At Mona’s call, the team rush Akira, flocking around him like a band of flustered birds. Goro turns away from the display and tries to catch his breath. He can’t remember the last time he was this exhausted. Perhaps after his first awakening with Loki. Now he not only awakened to a third persona, he went two rounds against the Phantom Thieves and he nearly died fighting against the cognition. He will not fall though, not in front of the team, not after everything they’ve seen and learned about him here.

Healing magic infuses him then. It’s another one of Akira’s inexplicable skills, his ability to heal the team after a battle without the use of any items. Try as he might, and Goro did try on more than one occasion, he could never replicate it on his own. His failure had served as further proof of his inferiority and further fuel for his rage. Now he simply soaks in the energy and hopes that Akira will leave it at that.

He doesn’t. From the corners of his eyes, Goro sees Akira ease around Queen and make his way toward him. The team falls silent as Akira approaches. Goro braces himself, too. So much had happened the last hour, the last week, the last month between them. An hour ago, Goro had been hell bent on killing Akira. A week ago he thought that he had. But he’d awakened once more and burned away the boy that he’d been. He’d fought alongside Akira and saved him from dying.

Where that leaves them, Goro doesn’t know. Akira was usually silent, and he had been through all of this. In that regard, he was the exact opposite of Goro, who had learned early on the power provided to him by pretty words. They papered over his howling soul and made him palatable to the spineless masses. Goro had started that way with Akira, too, playing the part of the pleasant Detective Prince, but before such attentive silence, his sweetness gave way to sincerity, and Goro was revealing aspects of his life that he’d never shared with anyone.

What would Akira wrest from him now?

He stops before Goro. He doesn’t say anything, not at first, instead taking a few moments to peer at Goro. The scrutiny makes Goro’s pulse race, it makes his jaw clench. He endures it and returns it, gazing at the boy before him. The one he killed. The one he saved. The one he hates. But not just hate, Morgana had been right about that. Goro can at least admit to the dozen other emotions that rush through him at the sight of Akira, at the mere thought of him. They tangle and snarl and the knot is too convoluted for Goro to untangle, even now after his awakening.

And those sharp grey eyes see all as they usually do, yet still Akira remains silent. He holds out a hand instead. Goro looks down and sees one of those strange stamina patches that Akira acquires from somewhere. “Here,” he says, finally breaking his silence. “Our route to the treasure should be secure, but just in case it isn’t and we run into more shadows, you might need this.”

Goro waits, but none of the Phantom Thieves protest the offer or its implicit invitation for him to join their team. He shouldn’t be surprised, they had extended an invitation to him after his defeat and before the cognition arrived, but Goro has lived and breathed lies for too many years. So he is surprised, enough that he has to take a moment to draw in a breath before extending his hand. 

Akira, however, doesn’t let go of the patch when Goro tries to take it. He holds on and says, his voice quiet, just for the two of them, “Also, we’ll be talking at Leblanc later tonight.” 

The breath catches in Goro’s chest. “I wasn’t aware that you’d switched your team debriefs to the evenings.”

“I didn’t. You and I are going to talk.”

It’s not a command. Nor is it a request. Rather, Akira speaks as though it is a deed already done, as though it is a fate that awaits them, beyond any sort of choice or control. And perhaps it is. Goro had certainly mused more than once this past year about fate bringing them together. Some of it had been to fluster Akira, to try to dig beneath that stoic skin, but some had derived from the genuine wonder that Goro felt at meeting someone who affected him as much as Akira did.

Still, Goro says, “And if I refuse?”

“You won’t, if only so you can learn how we outsmarted you in Sae’s palace.”

Goro finally looks up at him. There’s no trace of Joker in his eyes, no reckless bravado or devil may care mockery. Just an intensity that sears into Goro’s soul. After all the words that they’ve exchanged since they first met, now they will finally _talk_. No pretenses and no hidden agendas. Just clear, honest communication. The thought terrifies and electrifies. He needs to know, but the revelations he may be asked to reveal in return give him pause.

_SO YOU SPURN TRUTH ONCE AGAIN? YOU CHOOSE TO REMAIN BLIND?_

Lucifer says nothing more, but he doesn’t need to. The reminder is enough. Goro nearly paid the ultimate price for losing sight of the truth. He has another chance, with himself and with Akira, too.

Drawing in a breath, he nods.

He hears relief in Akira’s exhale and sees it in the slight settling of his shoulders. Akira releases the stamina patch and then he turns and says to the team, “All right. Fox, Skull, and Panther, you’re with me on the front line. Everyone else, prepare yourself, just in case. Now let’s move out.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like Akira's personas all having different skills, I liked the thought of Goro's having different skills. Loki has the support skill. Lucifer has Double Agent, giving him and the team the ability to act twice in one turn.
> 
> Up next, Akira's POV: after the battle and Rank 10 in the Justice confidant.


	3. The Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The battle against the cognition is over. The battle within Akira begins. What does he want for Goro and from him, and what does he want Goro to want for and from him?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Work has tired me out most days, so writing has been compressed to the weekends and maybe the odd night or two when I'm not completely exhausted. Thank you to those who endured the wait for this next part and to those who are taking a chance on an unfinished fic. Thank you especially to those who were kind enough to leave a comment on the prior chapter. I truly appreciate you taking the time to leave your thoughts and reactions.
> 
> I know the game encourages you to fuse Arsene early on to make another persona, but I say fuck that. I like the thought of Arsene remaining a permanent part of Akira (his core self that is augmented by the other persona), so I built him up in the Velvet Room and kept him until the very end of my NG+ playthrough of Royal (though I used Satanael in the final battle). Hence, Akira has him still in the story.

The Unconquerable Will  
Part Three: The Choice

*

The train ride to Yogen-Jaya is quiet. A somewhat surprising turn of events given how Akira sits between two of his more talkative teammates, Futaba to his right and Goro to his left. Surprising too given Akira’s previous declaration to talk to Goro when they returned to the real world. 

Yet the day had been long. Before the engine room, before the cleaner, the team had gotten lost in the last segment of the rat maze, which meant more shadows to fight. Then came the back to back to back to back fights with the IT president, the cleaner, then Goro and the cognition. Any would have been enough to sap their energy. All meant that they’d trudged silent and weary from the engine room to secure their route to the treasure.

If the fights hadn’t subdued the team, Akira knows that Goro would have. From the shock of his initial ambush to the shock of his final two-part attack against the cognition, their conception of him had been upended again and again and again. How did you respond to the boy who had desperately tried to kill you only to desperately try to save you a mere thirty minutes later? Even Akira struggled to wrap his mind around the many sides he’d just seen of Goro, and he’d gotten to know Goro better than any of them the past five months.

At the thought, Akira glances at Goro now. He’s staring at his phone, his legs crossed smoothly before him. There’s not a hair out of place. To most, no doubt, he looks like the perfect Detective Prince, polished and poised, but Akira knows what churns beneath the smooth surface and he can see the small signs of strain in the grip Goro has on his phone and the stiff set of his shoulders. 

He can’t help but stare. 

He’s seen the truth of Goro now in all of its startling complexity, but the meaning of it all is still uncertain. Goro tried to kill him, yet he saved Akira, too. He fought against the team and then he fought with them. He broke the shackles that bound him, rejecting the duplicity of his father, but given the inconsistency of his past, his path forward is uncertain.

Which would he choose with his hardwon freedom?

Which did Akira want him to choose?

In the engine room, his nerves still singing from Goro’s awakening and their victory against the cognition, the mystery dazzled him. But here in the real world, beneath the harsh train lights and without the comfort of Arsene’s sure hand and Joker’s mask, the uncertainty daunts Akira. 

Looking away, Akira draws in a careful breath. He doesn’t know what he wants for Goro or from him either. So much has happened between them, especially the last few months, but Akira hasn’t let himself think about it. The safety of the team had been on the line, and Goro had been the key to both the police investigation and the assassination plot. Akira’s feelings didn’t matter. Understanding Goro’s did. So Akira hadn’t let himself think about himself or about how he felt or how he wanted to feel.

But those obstacles would soon cease to exist. Tomorrow, they would change Shido’s heart, and likely with Goro fighting by their side.

Akira’s pulse picks up at the memory of their combination attack, but the train begins to slow for the Yongen-Jaya station so he sets the memory and any accompanying contemplation off to the side. His bag is light without Morgana, who had decided to accompany Haru for the night. Akira hopes it was for Haru’s sake, or even for Akira’s, to give him space to talk to Goro, yet he fears Morgana left because of the fight, because he had been brainwashed into attacking Akira. Only he and Goro had. Did that mean something? There’s still so much about the Metaverse they don’t know. Were they all equally susceptible to status ailments, or did their cognition determine how susceptible they were? Did Morgana’s fear of being something other than human, something bad or perhaps even evil, make him weak to the notion he was their enemy? If so, did that mean that Akira and Makoto were afraid as they’d been the ones susceptible to fear?

Movement to his left captures his attention. Goro stands from his seat, slides his phone into his pocket, and then straightens the cuffs of his jacket. Each movement is smooth and precise. Akira again can’t help but stare. 

He stares, and the breath catches in his throat.

He stares, and Goro lifts his gaze.

What does he want?

What does he fear?

Does he want what he fears, or does he fear what he wants?

Heart pounding, Akira turns away. 

He follows Futaba out of the train and through the station, and Goro follows him. They’re an odd silent train. All of their lives had been upended and nearly destroyed by Shido. They’d reacted in different ways, Futaba turning her pain inward and Goro directing his outward and Akira locking his away altogether. Yet they’d all overcome that pain and reclaimed themselves and their lives, sometimes on their own, sometimes helping each other along the way.

Akira looks at Futaba as she steps onto the backstreets of Yongen-Jaya. Her aid had been crucial to Goro finally defeating the cognition. It had surprised Akira, though perhaps it shouldn’t have. The team had reached out to Goro before the cognition arrived, offering him the chance to join them as they took down Shido. But this had felt different. This had felt personal, Futaba’s anger clear in her voice as she manipulated the cognition in the Metaverse and gave Goro more power. The situation must have resonated with her, a proxy of Shido’s berating Goro, trying its best to tear him down and make him believe that his solitude was his fault. Aid wasn’t forgiveness, but it was progress, it was another step away from Shido and his poison, for Futaba and Goro and maybe even for the rest of them, too.

Still silent, they wind their way through Yongen-Jaya to Leblanc. It’s as empty as Akira expected it to be at this time of night. He follows Futaba inside. Sojiro turns as the bell sounds, his mouth open to greet them, only to freeze as he catches sight of who exactly is standing behind Akira.

Blinking once, Sojiro looks at Futaba and then at Akira before he says, “Care to explain?”

Futaba flops onto a stool at the counter. “Shido’s his dad.”

“Shido tried to kill him,” Akira adds when Futaba fails to elaborate. “And me, too. Akechi saved my life.”

Futaba grunts an agreement as she slumps over the counter. “Dramatic slo-mo running and all.”

Sojiro blinks again. He peers at Goro, who stands stiff in the doorway, half in and half out of the cafe. Akira watches the debate flit across Sojiro’s face, what he knew about Goro (how he tried to kill Akira, how he caused Wakaba’s mental shutdown) battling with what he now knows (how he saved Akira, how he may have been affected by a having man like Shido as his father). Or perhaps all that matters is how Goro meets his stare and endures his scrutiny, his body braced as though for a blow.

A beat passes and then Sojiro sighs. “Come in, kid. You’re letting out all the heat.”

Goro eases inside, just far enough so that the door can close behind him. He keeps eyeing Sojiro, and Akira sees himself in the wary gaze, doubting every adult after his arrest, expecting no good actions or intentions. The fact that he can see this distrust is progress. While Goro wore his mask on the way here, ever cautious before the public, he hasn’t completely retreated behind it.

He’s still letting them in.

“Thank you, Sakura-san.”

The words are clipped, as stiff as Goro himself. They make Sojiro sigh again. “Yeah, yeah.” He shifts his attention back to Akira. “Where’s the cat?”

“With Haru.” 

Sojiro nods before turning around and shuffling to the kitchen. “Sit down. Let me get you some food.”

“That isn’t necessary, Sakura-san. I merely came to talk to Kurusu-kun.”

Sojiro doesn’t even stop. “You won’t be doing much of anything if you don’t eat.”

He disappears into the kitchen without another word. Goro works his jaw a moment. His weight shifts back, as though he’s contemplating dashing back through the door, away from Sojiro and his food, perhaps from Futaba, and maybe even from Akira and their impending conversation. Yet his gaze snags on Akira’s before he can turn. They stare at each other a moment. Akira keeps his face as blank as he can, careful to let Goro make the decision about whether to stay. 

After a moment, Goro squares his shoulders and heads for the counter. He sits in his usual place, as far from Futaba as he can possibly be. Akira doubts that Futaba’s registering his presence anymore, her phone out and inches from her face. Akira bypasses the stool between them and heads behind the counter to prepare some coffee. Sojiro glances at him as he begins to wash his hands, but he doesn’t say anything. Akira appreciates the silence. 

It helps him deal with the heavy gaze settling upon him.

Goro barely looked at him the first time they met, drawn more to the Shujin uniforms that he and Ann and Ryuji wore. It wasn’t until the next day when Akira spoke out against Goro that he felt that sharp steady stare. No one had ever looked at Akira like that before, not before his arrest and not after. Before, people glanced at him with the same passing interest with which they looked at anyone else. After, people tried their best not to look at Akira at all, or if they did, it was with disdain, with a barely concealed sneer at the dangerous delinquent punk. The friends that Akira’s made in Tokyo look at him, but not quite with the same intensity, Akira pinned in place by the twin spotlights of Goro’s eyes.

Rinsing off the soap, Akira dries his hands then turns for the coffee siphons. Yet his gaze strays, down the counter to Goro. His pulse quickens when they lock eyes. What does Goro see when he looks at him? An enemy or a friend? Joker or Akira?

What does Akira want him to see?

Turning away, Akira scans the shelves of beans. Goro tended to dislike coffee that was too sweet, so he bypasses the Columbian Narino and Brazilian Bourbon. He could select the Jamaican Blue Mountain, but that was what Goro usually had when he came to Leblanc before Sae’s palace. He considers for a wild moment serving him the Indonesian Kopi Luwak, but Sojiro would probably deduct the cost from his nonexistent pay and Futaba would never let him hear the end of it, so he continues on, eventually selecting the Mocha Matari. 

Returning to the siphons, Akira begins to prepare the coffee. The strangeness of the situation hits him then. He’d imagined so many scenarios if he survived the police and saw Goro again. None of them were quite like this, Goro in Leblanc about to share Sojiro’s curry with him and Futaba. Akira had imagined a battle like the one in the bowels of Shido’s ship, but even that defied his expectations, Goro awakening from Shido’s influence and choosing to save Akira’s life.

The breath catches in Akira’s chest at the memory. It hadn’t been the first time that someone had saved Akira. Ryuji had in their fight against Okumura, and Ann had in a tricky battle with a Kali their first day in Shido’s palace. Akira hates it, hates that he needs it, that he can’t be revived as they can, that he places this burden on their friends and now on Goro.

The way he had run toward Akira, the way he had looked at him, determination and desperation in his movement and his eyes. Akira hadn’t seen the first shot from the cognition, but he’d heard it, he heard how it hit Goro. He’d righted himself in time to see the second shot, see how it struck Goro in the chest, how Goro reeled from the impact, how he-

The cup and saucer slip from his shaking hands. The saucer clatters onto the counter and the cup nearly falls to the floor, but Akira manages to grab it before it does. He stares at it a moment, his heart pounding from the memory and the near destruction. 

All the while Goro watches him like a hawk. 

“You know,” Sojiro says from behind him, “sitting applies to you, too.”

Akira swallows and sets the cup on the counter. “I will in a minute.”

He starts preparing the coffee then. Sojiro sighs but doesn’t try to get him to sit, a fact that Akira appreciates. He needs to be doing something. The distraction will settle him, and he needs to be settled for the upcoming conversation.

When the coffee finishes, Akira slides the first cup in front of Futaba, who grunts her thanks, and then he makes his way down the counter to Goro. Akira sets the second cup before him. He looks up as he withdraws his hand and locks eyes with Goro. They stare at each other silently, and the questions push at Akira. Why did Goro do it? Why did he save Akira? Was it simply in pursuit of victory? Was it a needed step in his war against Shido? Or was there greater meaning?

Was it because, perhaps, of Akira, of how Goro may feel about him?

The cognition’s taunts flit through his mind. A boy as striking as Akira. What Goro would do for such a boy. Was it _a_ boy, any boy that happened to catch Goro’s eye? Or was it _one_ boy? Was it Akira himself? Akira stares at Goro and tries to discern the truth from the delicate way that his fingers settle on the cup, to how the lights of Leblanc shine in his burgundy eyes.

A boy as striking as him.

What would Akira do for such a boy? 

What _will_ he do?

Shoving aside the thought, he drops his gaze to the coffee and says, “It’s Mocha Matari. I don’t think you’ve had this one.”

For a moment, Goro doesn’t respond. Then he murmurs, “No. I haven’t.”

He taps the tip of one gloved finger against the handle of the cup. The black leather stands stark against the white of the china. Black and white. The same as Goro’s tie. The same as his persona too, Loki clad entirely in the colors and Lucifer in a black cloth with white wings. There were dashes of red here and there, in the tips of Loki’s fingers and his long, heavy braids and the fiery crown that Lucifer clutched in his hand. 

White, black, and red. Akira’s colors and Arsene’s, too, though in different ratios, only dashes of white amidst all the black and red. They weren’t the only ones with those colors, Ann in red and Makoto in black, but they were the only ones with just those colors, and-

Goro moves then, breaking Akira from his thoughts. He lifts his cup, bringing it close to his face to breathe in the scent of the coffee. Akira watches him. He can’t stop himself, though he knows it’s weird. If Futaba were less exhausted right now, she’d be judging him accordingly, but Akira can’t help it. He’s finally seen the truth of Goro. Like the dashes of red, he’d seen glimpses of the truth here and there since they met, a sharp stare belying Goro’s soft smile, or barbed words said in his princely lilt. But now those barriers are gone, smashed to smithereens in Shido’s ship, and only the truth remains. 

No pleasant Detective Prince. No false comrade in arms. No desperate, raving foe.

Just Goro.

Head spinning from the thought, Akira watches as Goro takes a drink of the coffee. He doesn’t immediately swallow. Instead, he savors the taste. Akira watches and waits for the judgment that is sure to come. After a moment, Goro lifts his gaze.

But it’s not Goro that speaks. It’s Sojiro.

“Hate to break up… whatever this is,” Sojiro says. Akira whips his head around to find Sojiro on the other side of the counter by a sleeping Futaba. His coat and hat are already on and he clutches a take out bag in one hand. Two other plates of curry sit steaming on the counter, ready to eat. 

Nodding toward Futaba, Sojiro continues, “I should get this one home before she gets too deep into sleep.” Glancing back at Akira, he adds, “You good to lock up?”

He hasn’t asked that question in a while, not for months, not since Akira helped Futaba return to the world. And Akira knows it’s not about him or his ability. It’s about Goro. Or maybe it’s about him _and_ Goro and whatever Sojiro sees when he looks at them.

There’s a faint rattle as Goro sets his cup back in its saucer.

Before he can move any further, Akira nods.

Sojiro eyes him a moment before he, too, nods. He wakes Futaba and manages to get her upright and out the door in less than a minute. The tinkle of the bell follows in their wake and then Akira and Goro are alone.

Akira’s gaze drifts back to Goro. If he’d looked away from Akira as Sojiro spoke, he’s looking back now, but the prior intensity is gone. Instead, Goro regards him as Akira does Goro in return, neither of them wary of the other, but both somewhat uncertain, perhaps even hesitant. The last obstacles are gone. Nothing stands between them and their needed conversation.

But how to proceed down a path that neither have traversed, especially with each other?

Akira reaches for his fringe. As he fiddles and dawdles and delays, scrambling his brain for what to say, the scent of the curry that Sojiro made hits him again. Lowering his hand, he gestures to the plates and says, “Do you want to eat in one of the booths?”

“I didn’t want to eat at all.”

Akira clenches his jaw, but Goro continues before he can respond.

“But I will with you.”

The comment makes the breath catch in Akira’s chest. Is he reading too much into the tone? Is he hearing more than just a meal in what Goro will do and what he wants to do, in what he wants with and from Akira? There was only one way to find out, so Akira nods and grabs the plates. He makes his way to the closest booth, sets the plates down, then doubles back for cutlery. Goro is at the booth when he returns, his cup of coffee before him and the one left untouched by Futaba by Akira’s plate. 

Handing Goro his cutlery, Akira slides into the booth. He lays his napkin in his lap and begins to eat. Goro does too, and for a few minutes, they eat silently and steadily. Akira knows he must be the one to begin this conversation, it was his idea after all, but how to begin to unpack the tangle that is them when lies and murder and betrayal lurk in the snarl, perhaps alongside things softer and infinitely more dangerous in nature?

“So…” Akira begins. “Do you like the curry?” 

He glances at Goro and finds him arching a brow. “You didn’t ask me here to learn my opinion about the curry.”

The response makes Akira sigh. “No, but I thought it would be easier to start there than with how you tried to kill me.”

“I didn’t try,” Goro says. “I killed you. Or who I thought was you. Avoiding that will accomplish nothing.”

“And yet you hesitated to come here to talk to me.”

Goro leans back in the booth. “I did.” He goes quiet then, and his gaze turns inward, perhaps so he can think about honesty or hesitation or the curry or the attempted murder. The emotions pass across his face too quickly for Akira to grasp, so he waits and after a few seconds Goro murmurs, “An honest conversation… I can’t recall the last time I had one.”

“Same here.”

This prompts Goro to look at him again.

Akira shrugs as he sets his spoon at the edge of his plate. “I’m not dishonest. It’s just most of my conversations aren’t about me.”

Goro peers at him a moment before he, too, sets his spoon down. “That’s by design, I suspect.”

Akira nods. He reaches for his cup of coffee, but he doesn’t drink from it. He just holds it, fiddles with it, gives his hands something to do in the wake of this now spoken truth. “After my arrest,” he begins, “no one cared about me or what I had to say. So I stopped talking. I stopped trying. I locked it all away.” He pauses, his throat thickening as he digs up what he’d tried so hard to bury, what he _had_ buried, at least until he moved to Tokyo. “But here, my friends… They’ve wanted to know about me, so I’ve done it. Just not with you,” he adds after another pause.

“No, I suppose you haven’t. But why would you?” Goro asks as he looks away. “We’re rivals. We’re not friends.”

Akira’s hands tighten on his cup. “Do you want to be?”

Goro doesn’t respond. He reaches for his cup and takes a drink, possibly deliberating or possibly hesitating. Perhaps he still hates Akira. Perhaps the fluidity of their attack against the cognition means nothing. Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. After another few seconds, Goro returns his cup to its saucer and says, his gaze still averted from Akira, “I don’t think I’d be a good one. Friends don’t try to murder each other after all.” 

A bit of the tension eases from Akira’s shoulders. “They don’t,” he admits. “But I didn’t ask if we _had_ been friends. I asked if you _want_ to be now.”

The clarification stretches between them like an olive branch, like a lifeline. Akira peers at Goro and watches the debate play out across his face, but like everything with Goro, the distinct parts, the way his shoulders settle and the way he furrows his brow, the way his hands grip his cup and the way he lets loose a light breath, don’t resolve into a coherent picture. Another moment passes and then Goro looks at him with a pleasant Princely smile on his face. “I do like the curry. Please pass my compliments to Sakura-san.”

Rather than nettle, the evasion brings a small smile to Akira’s face. His smile soothes Goro’s into something softer and more genuine. They stare at each other, and as they do, the impossibility of their endeavor begins to fade for Akira. They don’t know how to be honest, not with each other and often not with the world, but they’re here and they’re trying, and that knowledge settles the cloud of confusion that’s swirled within Akira. He doesn’t know, but he _wants_ to know, he wants like he wanted as he stood in the engine room before Crow, dazzled by the brilliance of his final attack, by how well they fought together against the cognition, by Goro’s transformation from a prince to a jester to a knight. 

Akira feels the same thrill that he felt then, the same fascination, so he says, his voice quiet in the hush of Leblanc, “Let me clean up and then we can continue. Maybe at the baths? They feel nice after a trip to the Metaverse.”

He leaves it at that, though the rest of the reasoning pushes at him, how that was the last place he and Goro connected with each other, Goro telling him about his painful past. That had been the peak for them, or perhaps the precipice, and they’d plunged over after, pulled apart by choice and fate. They couldn’t erase what came after, their duel in Mementos and their battle in Shido’s ship and their harrowing encounter in the interrogation room, but they could choose anew, in full light and knowledge of themselves and each other.

Though Akira leaves the reason at that, he sees the rest reflected in Goro’s eyes, yet there’s no hesitation within Goro as he nods, no contemplation of retreat as when he’d first stepped inside Leblanc. Perhaps their honesty about their lack of honesty settled him as much as it had Akira, or perhaps Goro, too, is dazzled by the potential for truth and understanding.

Whatever the reason, he nods, and Akira smiles.

*


	4. The Recognition

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Akira and Goro talk at the baths.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This has been a month, y'all. In case you could not tell, I'm American. The weeks leading up to and after the election were like !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!. But the orange evil has been elected out and so far his efforts to cheat his way back in have been unsuccessful, so I can think about other things again.
> 
> I meant for this to be the last part, 2 for Goro and 2 for Akira, but I did as I usually do, which is write entirely too much. So there will be one final part to wrap up this arc, though I may add a second one. I have lots of thoughts about what a fight against Shido would look like with Goro fighting beside the Phantom Thieves.
> 
> If the first two parts were about Goro recognizing the truth about himself and then of Akira, then these two parts are about Akira recognizing the truth about himself and then of Goro. But they’re also of Goro recognizing that Akira recognizes the truth about himself, the real Goro, and of having to deal with that recognition. Basically, I’m enamored by these two and the fronts they put forth between themselves and the world, and what would have to happen for them to see each other as they truly are.

The Unconquerable Will  
Part Four: The Recognition

*

The baths are blessedly empty, the cooler November temperatures keeping even the most faithful visitors away. Akira sinks into the water opposite Goro, nearly groaning as the heat envelops his sore muscles. While he’s gotten stronger since he first awoke in the Metaverse, the shadows have gotten stronger, too, though they’re not as strong as Morgana and Goro. Especially Goro, who packed a wallop before his awakening and hit even harder after. Akira knows he would have lost their duel in Mementos if Goro had been fighting at full strength, and he doubts he would have survived their fight in the engine room if he’d been fighting alone. Thankfully, he hadn’t been, and now he would fight alongside that remarkable strength when they took on Shido.

But that’s for tomorrow. Tonight is for him and Goro and whatever brews between them.

At the thought, Akira glances at Goro. He’s peering back, his gaze thoughtful. They stare at each other, and as they do, the present blurs into the past for Akira, to their last trip to the baths. They sit where they sat before when Goro cracked open the princely shell and showed Akira the tender truth that seethed inside, his sorrow for his mother and his anger at his father. Akira hears the echo of those revelations in the steam that curls around them. He’s contemplating whether to say something about then or to keep his focus on now, to continue their conversation where they left off in Leblanc, the question of friendship dangling between them, when Goro speaks.

“So how did you outsmart me in the interrogation room?”

Akira can’t help the small smile that forms at the question. The Goro of old, the soft and pleasant Prince, would have danced delicately around the subject, burying the text beneath metaphors and musings on philosophy. But with each conversation they’ve had, they’ve crawled from beneath the subtext, clawing closer and closer to candor.

Like now as Goro narrows his eyes. “Does my failure amuse you?”

Akira shakes his head. 

“Then what?”

“I’m not amused. I’m pleased.”

“At my failure.”

“At your frankness.”

Goro blinks at that, and the irritation fades from his face.

As it does, Akira shrugs. “You’re a lot different from the Detective Prince.” He looks away then, his next thought heating his face. But he says it anyway, in the spirit of honesty, in the echoes of the past revelations. “I like seeing the real you.”

Silence follows his pronouncement. Akira waits, giving Goro time to process, to form a reaction to his surprising sentiment. The silence persists, the seconds slipping by. Akira counts them in heartbeats. He’s reached twelve when Goro finally responds.

“The real me murdered you.”

Akira looks back at him. Goro hasn’t turned away, not like Akira had to admit his hidden truth. Instead, Goro stares directly at Akira. But his gaze is too direct. What had seemed like admirable frankness before now seems like a feint, a facade of forthrightness to conceal a hidden truth. The urge to sigh hits Akira hard. Still, _still_ , Goro obscures and evades. Akira considers pressing him on the issue, but force breaks rather than obtains, so instead he says, “We used the Metaverse. We made you think we took Sae’s treasure, but we didn’t. So the palace still existed when I was in custody, and the me that you saw in there was a cognition.”

Goro straightens, and his show of sincerity gives way to a searing truth. “You brought Sae into her own palace?” 

Akira nods. “We’d seen it happen before, so we knew it would be okay. At least for a while.” 

Goro looks away, a faint frown appearing on his face as his clever brain dissects the implications of that revelation. “So it was the phone. But how?” He looks back up at Akira and pins his fast with the intensity of his gaze. “Neither Sae nor myself said the keywords.”

“You don’t have to every time. They’re stored-”

“In the app. You found a way to remotely activate the app.”

Akira nods again.

Shock softens Goro’s spine, causing him to slump a bit in the water. His gaze drifts off again and Akira should probably turn away, should probably give Goro the space to process this, but the flutter of emotions across Goro’s face captivates him. Akira spies irritation and frustration and a grudging, strained respect. Which will land? Which will Goro choose to show him?

A few more seconds pass before Goro turns back toward him. A small tight smile twists his face as he says, “That’s… impressive. I’m impressed. Truly.”

And he is. Akira knows that he’s speaking true. The mellifluous comments that Goro showered him with at the start of their acquaintance never landed for Akira. They never felt like lies, not outright, but they never felt genuine either. They felt like the ploy that they were, the means for Goro to achieve his ends. But this, reluctant and stilted as it is, this rings true.

Again Akira smiles.

As he does, Goro’s smile shifts to a scowl. “You don’t have to be so happy about beating me.” 

“I’m not, and we didn’t. You figured us out all on your own. How?”

Goro eyes him a moment before responding. “Shido. He was becoming too irrational. There was no reason for it. He should have been more secure after your ‘death,’ so I thought your team was foolishly continuing without you.”

Akira mulls over the explanation as he runs his hands through the warm water. “We didn’t think about how Shido might react to our progress through his palace.”

“Unlike your previous targets, Shido’s aware of the cognitive world and the threat it can pose to him. Given this, the state of that world would have more of an impact on him than on others.”

At that, Akira goes still. “Does he know we’re coming for him?”

“In a sense. He’s asked me to root out the traitors that still exist among his cronies. That can only be the result of your conquests in his palace. It’s only a matter of time before he sets his sights on your team. And on you,” he adds a second later. “Your ruse won’t last forever.” 

It won’t. Akira’s surprised it’s lasted as long as it has. He credits Sae’s skills as much as he does Shido’s unbelievable arrogance. What threat would a single teenager pose to the great Masayoshi Shido? Why would he need to follow through on his murderous orders against one pathetic boy? Yet while Akira may be “dead,” his team isn’t, and they’re not a thread that Shido would want to let dangle forever.

Not the man who had no qualms about killing his own son.

The anger that simmers ceaselessly beneath Akira’s skin flares hot at the thought. He didn’t think anyone could get more heinous than Madarame or Okumura, using and abusing Yusuke and Haru for their own profit. But Shido outdid them both, manipulating Goro into committing the awful acts that he needed done in order to attain power.

Gritting his teeth, Akira pulls in a long, slow breath. He exhales it slowly, too, willing his rage to cool. Tomorrow, Shido would be stopped. Tomorrow, they would finally be safe, all of them, the team and Goro and Sojiro and Sae and everyone else who supported and helped them.

Akira would make sure of it. 

“Tomorrow,” he says. “We’ll send the card tomorrow.”

“Good. Only ruin awaits us if we delay.”

The comment cools the last remnants of Akira’s anger. Igor boasted of similar claims, of the ruin that awaited them all if Akira couldn’t complete his rehabilitation. Akira the wild card. Akira the trickster. Yet Goro wields the same abilities Akira does and has for far longer. At least two years if what happened to Wakaba Isshiki was his first order from Shido.

Two years. Two years of traipsing through the Metaverse, wreaking havoc on Shido’s orders, yet Igor only learned about Goro after Akira did.

How could Igor not have known about Goro if he knew about Akira the same day that he awoke to Arsene?

Akira contemplates the question another moment before setting it aside, stacking it carefully on top of the other disquieting aspects he’s collected about Igor and the Velvet Room. He needed to crest the first hill looming before him before attempting to climb the next, and for that to happen, he needed a plan.

And to make a plan, he needed information.

Focusing again on Goro, Akira says, “Do you still have Robin Hood?”

Goro arches a brow at him. “Why? Do you miss him? I suppose he is more palatable than either Loki or Lucifer.”

Akira shakes his head. “They’re fine. It’s like you said. Shido knows about the cognitive world. His palace is unlike any we’ve seen so far. The same will probably be true for him. The only way we can make a plan against him is if all our cards are on the table.”

“Are yours?”

The conciseness of the question belies its complexity. Akira thinks of the Velvet Room again, of the twins and their disquiet over their mysterious list, and of Igor, too, peering at Akira from over the top of his pale slender hands. Secrecy reigned there. Akira had carried that secrecy out to the real world, speaking little about that place or its people to his team. Even with their experience in the Metaverse, he hadn’t thought they would understand. Not in total. But Goro existed outside the same bounds of the Metaverse as Akira did, he too was a Wild Card, so perhaps he would.

“No,” he says as he meets Goro’s gaze. “But they will be.”

The claim startles Goro. It’s a good look on him, the wide eyes and slack mouth. It was the first time that Akira saw it, too, in the dim light of the cafe in Kichijoji, Goro startling as Akira stood up from his chair to muss that prim perfection. He’d done it to mess with Goro as much to help him, the melancholic twist to his mouth as more and more people recognized him seeming like a glimpse at his true feelings. Akira’s face heats as he remembers the way Goro’s hair felt beneath his hands, the strands cool and soft, and the slight catch to Goro’s breath as Akira slid his glasses onto Goro’s face.

At the thought, Akira glances away. He swallows, and his hands clench in the water.

Perhaps the memory of that time in the cafe lingers in the swirling steam of the baths as, beyond the bubbling of the water, Akira thinks that he hears the same catch of breath. Yet Goro’s voice is steady as he says, “Robin’s gone. But as you saw, Lucifer has his bless skill, and Loki the rest.”

Akira forces himself to relax his hands. “Can Loki do what Lucifer can, acting twice in a turn?”

“No. His skill is now what Robin’s was.”

It takes an effort, but Akira manages to restrain his sigh of relief. The ability to drive people mad was too dangerous for anyone to have, but especially Goro, who showed no qualms about using it against himself before their fight in the engine room. He must have realized this on some level, too, if Loki changed. Personas reflected the souls of their bearers after all.

At that, Akira’s gaze drifts back to Goro. For once, he’s not looking at Akira. His eyes are closed and his head is tilted a bit to the side. The steam has caused the ends of his hair to curl, and like the last time, stripped as he is of his uniform, of his dapper tie and perfect gloves, he looks like a completely different person. But he isn’t. This is Goro as much as any other incarnation of him has been. Robin Hood, Loki, and Lucifer are proof of that, of his startling complexity. They were so wildly different from each other, far more so than the second personas that Ryuji, Ann, and Yusuke have developed. Theirs were alterations, matured iterations. But aside from a few similar skills, Robin Hood and Loki and Lucifer no more resembled each other than Akira’s persona did.

Two sides, same coin indeed.

Perhaps Arsene could evolve as Robin Hood and Loki have. 

Perhaps Goro could wield additional persona like Akira did.

Akira sets aside the first thought. Maybe it would happen one day, maybe it never would, but the second they could easily test. And knowing Goro as he does, Akira suspects he has already tested that theory.

So he asks, “Have you ever tried to get more persona?”

Irritation pinches Goro’s face. “Isn’t it my turn for a question?”

And Akira tries. He tries to tamp down on the little rush of affection that appears within him at another glimpse of the true Goro, especially as Goro opens his eyes, but he fails. The irritation fades again from Goro’s face, and he stares at Akira, startled by what he sees. Akira wants to reach out, he wants to know how Goro’s hair, damp now from the bath, feels beneath his hands, he wants to see what other expressions he can startle out of Goro, if he can make him smile again or scowl or if he can, perhaps, make him blush.

And maybe he does do the latter. Goro looks away then, but Akira still spies the faint flush to cheeks, maybe because of Akira, but maybe because of the baths. It fascinates. Akira watches as Goro swallows, as he draws in a breath, as he opens his mouth and says, “I have, but I was not successful.”

It takes a moment for the words to process, for Akira to realize Goro had answered his question, rather than what went unsaid between them. The disappointment that he feels startles Akira even more than the affection itself. Ducking his head, he stares down at the water and takes a moment to compose himself before he says, “That makes sense. I couldn’t get more until Ann joined the team. You can’t really pressure shadows into negotiating if you only have one or two people.”

“I suppose not.”

Silence descends between them, but it doesn’t bother Akira, his mind too busy contemplating the next thought, whether the benefits of saying it outweigh the detriments.

Before he can decide, Goro speaks again. “And no, I don’t want to try to get any more.”

Akira looks up at him. Goro’s staring back, but it’s that too direct look from before, that forced composure that irks Akira and prompts him to pry. “Why not?”

“Like I said, we can’t delay sending the calling card. And besides,” Goro adds, his jaw clenching for the briefest of moments, “I don’t think it would be successful.”

“Why not?”

Goro’s composure flickers at the question, but ultimately holds. “I can use multiple persona, but they’re all reflections of myself. Even Robin Hood was. But none of yours are, correct?”

“Arsene is.”

“But the rest?” Goro asks. “They weren’t born from you.”

“Not in total. They’re…” Akira trails off, struggling to find the words to describe what he only partially understands. Bonds and arcana, which shadows align with which people he’s met, all of it defies logic. But that’s the Metaverse, defying logic at every turn. Akira hasn’t yet sought a definitive answer for it all, accepting the partial explanations that Igor has deigned to give so far, but he suspects that his time with this, as with Shido, is likely drawing nigh.

But before he can have that conversation with Igor, he must finish this one. He takes a moment to consider and then says slowly, “They reflect the bonds I have with other people. That includes you.”

“Let me guess. Your creepy bear?”

The comment startles a laugh out of Akira. The laugh, in turn, startles Goro. He blinks at Akira, once and then again, but then he leans forward. As he does, the intensity of his expression shifts. It becomes no less demanding, but what it demands changes, sliding from an aggressive push, from shoving Akira away, to an eager pull, to seeking something from Akira. And Goro’s always sought from Akira, he’s always searched for the truth, for Joker, for the leader of the Phantom Thieves. And that truth had surprised him. He’d wondered at it and envied and raged.

And now.

And _now_.

And now Akira’s laughter fades at the way that Goro looks at him. Now his heartbeat quickens. Now the urge to reach out and touch Goro sets upon him again. “No,” Akira says, and his voice is somehow steadier than he feels. “That’s someone else.” 

“So what’s mine?”

The question is as demanding as Goro’s gaze. And Akira holds that gaze as he braces himself, as he prepares himself for the next revelation, as he says, “Yours are all angels.”

To say that the revelation surprises would be an understatement. It more than surprises Goro. It suckerpunches him. He jerks back and stares at Akira with wide eyes, and it’s fascinating how young Goro looks now with all of his defenses stripped away. It’s a glimpse of the boy he could have been if not for Shido and the cruelty of the world prompting him to similar cruelties.

“Always,” Akira says as he eases closer. “More consistently than anyone else. It’s how I knew there was more to you than what you chose to show me. Robin Hood never made sense with the persona, and neither does Loki. But Lucifer does.”

Goro continues to stare. 

Akira peers at him, he lets his gaze drift across Goro’s face, openly, brazenly. It snags on Goro’s mouth and lingers, and for the first time since they met, Akira wonders what it would be like to kiss Goro, if that’s something Goro would ever want him to do. 

The thought shakes him from the moment, from the edge of this precipice. Not yet. Not until the last of the barriers had fallen between them, until Goro had revealed whatever it is he’s trying to conceal and Akira found the words to tell him about Igor and the Velvet Room and the oncoming ruin. Maybe then. But now Akira guides them back to safer ground. “I think you could get more if you tried.”

Like before with Akira, when Goro sidestepped the subtext of the moment to respond directly to the text, it takes a moment for Goro to process what Akira said. He leans back when he does, but he doesn’t look away. Yet his gaze shutters, reinforcing the barrier, and his jaw goes tight as he says, “I’m not exactly known for my bonds with others.”

“You have one with me.”

Another ripple of emotion cascades across Goro’s face. He looks away then, and Akira waits for him to deny the claim, to sidestep the issue as he has all evening. He’ll press this time. He can’t let the progress that they’ve made toward honesty completely disappear beneath-

“I know.” 

The admission is quiet, but it strikes Akira like a thunderclap. Breathless, he takes the opening that Goro provides. “I don’t have to be the only bond you have either.”

At that, Goro gives a humorless laugh. “Yes, I’m sure that people will be lining up in droves to befriend the evil murderer.”

Akira frowns at the comment. “Is that what you think you are?”

“We both know I’ve killed people, Kurusu.”

Akira’s frown deepens, both at the claim and the use of his family name. “Yes. But I meant evil. Is that what you think you are?”

Goro’s quiet a long moment. He’d disavowed such a claim in the engine room, asserting instead that he’d been removing evil from the world as he’d done Shido’s bidding. Akira wonders if that had been a lie Shido told him or one that Goro created himself. Or perhaps it had been what Loki whispered to Goro upon his awakening. Arsene had told Akira to commit all sacrilegious acts in the name of his justice. Akira hadn’t murdered anyone, but he’d traipsed about in people’s hearts, forced his will upon theirs and enacted his justice.

Before Akira can sink too far down that rabbit hole, Goro responds. “We are what we do. Our actions make us who we are.”

“So who are you now that you saved my life?”

Another crack forms in Goro’s composure. He shakes his head and laughs again, and the sound of it, sharp and hard and desperate, wrenches at Akira. “You believe in that? An hour before that I wanted to kill you. And two weeks before that I claimed to be your ally. And a week before that I told you I hated you. How can you trust in any action I take? How can you believe anything I say?”

“Because I’ve seen the truth of you now. Lucifer isn’t a part or a piece of you, not like Robin Hood and Loki. He _is_ you.”

“And what justifies that?” The words waver, and perhaps because they do, Goro sneers at Akira in scorn. “Because he matches _your _conception of me, all those angels that you claim reflect my soul?”__

__“Maybe. But maybe it’s also because Lucifer looks nothing like Robin Hood or Loki. He’s not distorted like they are, like how you can be. But you’re not ramping up your charm or your hate anymore. You’re _you_ , and that’s-” _ _

__Akira breaks off, overcome with the rush of the moment, with the emotions churning inside him. He looks at Goro, at his flushed and flustered face, at his brown eyes burning as they stare back at Akira. How many times has Akira looked at him? How often, how intensely. Akira has peered at Goro since they first met, he’s assessed him, he’s tried his best to figure him out. But always at a distance. Akira had to be distant, he had to be cool, he had to be calm because Goro made him feel far from cool or calm. Goro made him _feel_ , provoking and intriguing and challenging and frustrating Akira at every turn._ _

__In the engine room, Goro had mused about what they could have been had they met a few years earlier. That Akira doesn’t know, but he knows what they are now. He saw it firsthand when the engine room faded away, and a rainswept roof appeared around them._ _

__Even now, far from the Metaverse, the memory makes him shiver. For the last few months, Akira had watched as his friends connected with each other, as they found a synergy of soul that the Metaverse made manifest. He hadn’t begrudged them this, not when they’d been so alone for so long. But he’d felt the distance between them, he’d felt his solitude, Akira not just a persona user but a _Wild Card_ , the only one, and he’d resigned himself to never achieving the same. _ _

__But then Goro had looked at him across the engine room, and he had _seen_ Akira, had seen the rage that burns within him, the fire that fueled Arsene, that burned so hot that it bled from him in wisps and snatches. Akira tried hard to hide his anger beneath a blank look or a blithe smile, but he’d lost control in the engine room, his composure snapping as the shadow taunted Goro about his sexuality. Shido had already ruined so much for Goro, warping and twisting and nearly breaking him. Akira wasn’t going to let him ruin this. So he snapped, his rage bursting free, and Goro had seen. He’d seen Akira, but there hadn’t been disgust or doubt or fear in his eyes. _ _

__There’d been recognition._ _

__There hadn’t been any rage in the pleasant Detective Prince. Only sugar and spice and everything nice. Occasionally, Akira caught glimpses of something sharper beneath, of the wolf in sheep’s clothing. Each glimpse, each lapse of the perfect shell, had been fascinating for its incongruity, but Goro had tucked them carefully away, had papered them over with an amiable smile. So Akira had also set them aside, he’d set his focus back on the mission at hand, but then Loki had burst forth, sharp and stark in black and white, and then Lucifer followed, his white wings lush and a burning crown in his hands, and all of it, everything, Goro, Akira, all of it, the things Akira wouldn’t let himself feel, the things Goro wouldn’t let himself show, all of it made perfect sense._ _

__White, black, and red._ _

__Two sides, same coin._ _

__Prodigal sons._ _

__Heart beating fast, Akira draws in a shaky breath. He knows he has to choose his words carefully here. Whatever he says will send him and Goro down one path or another. Akira knows what many would deem the wise choice to make, but he also knows that he’s never been wise._ _

__He has been, and always will be, a fool._ _

__Easing closer, he says, “Goro, I-”_ _

__“Don’t.”_ _

__Akira stills. He freezes, teetering breathless on the edge._ _

__“Not here,” Goro says, and his normally soft voice is rough and his normally mild eyes are wide and a touch wild, and the sight sends another shiver shooting down Akira’s spine, it sends a little lick of heat swirling through his chest._ _

__Somehow he manages to find his voice. “Leblanc?”_ _

__Goro gives a terse nod then starts to climb out of the bath. Akira, his mind spinning and his heart finally free, follows._ _

__*_ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please leave me your thoughts! I love this game and these two crazy kids and would love to hear your thoughts about them, too.


	5. The Vow

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The talk continues back at Leblanc, and Akira finally reveals all of his cards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The fic developed from my initial focus just on Goro awakening in the engine room, rather than choosing to sacrifice himself to save Akira. Akira wormed his way in with his own trauma and his own tyrant against which to rebel, so I revised the summary to more accurately reflect the equal focus on Goro and Akira. 
> 
> And now a new rank 10 Justice romance route, despite Goro being bad at feelings. This chapter references both Akira’s arrest and Goro’s childhood, but I’ve kept the references to sexual assault brief, just enough for Goro to understand what happened to Akira and to make the connection to his own childhood (meaning to his mother, what happened between her and Shido, and her work in the nightclub/as a prostitute). Also, Goro's veering wildly on the emotional pendulum. He's not the prim prince, but he's not third semester Goro either. He's oscillating somewhere in between as he tries to deal with all that's happened between him and Akira.

The Unconquerable Will  
Part Five: The Vow

*

Akira opens the door to Leblanc, but Goro is the first one through it. He doesn’t stop at the booth or the counter. Instead, as Akira locks the door behind them, Goro heads straight for the stairs.

His heart races as he climbs. His nerves crackle and pop. The way Akira had looked at him back at the bath. Even as the Detective Prince dissipated into the steam and Goro had snapped at Akira and snarled, Akira had still looked at him and _smiled_ , he’d still looked at Goro and _wanted_ , he’d still looked at Goro and talked of angels and bonds and truth, the truth of him, Goro Akechi, not the perfect shining prince. It was a truth no one had wanted before, but one that Akira demanded, no matter the ugliness that lurked within.

Goro reaches the top of the stairs. His gaze sweeps across Akira’s room, snagging on the massive Phantom Thieves poster that now hangs behind the couch. It hadn’t been there the last time that Goro had been, back when he’d been playing the part of Akira’s ally.

Back before he’d betrayed and murdered Akira. 

Goro closes his eyes at the thought and clenches his shaking hands. It’s always strange when he’s not wearing his gloves. He hadn’t put them on in his haste to leave the bath and he nearly reaches for them now. They keep him focused, help remind him of the need for control. He needed to be in control, he needed to lock his ugly heart away. No one would accept him if he didn’t. No one would want him, even if only to use him, and he wouldn’t be able to accomplish his plan. 

Yet Goro is not in control here. He’s at the mercy of Akira and the feelings that burn within him.

Behind him, Akira crests the stairs. Goro turns, and he’s struck as he always is by Akira’s quiet intensity, by his dark hair and sharp eyes, eyes made all the more striking by the absence of his glasses. Like a storm at sea, and Goro feels unmoored in the winds. What would happen if he let go, if he just gave in to all he feels?

How quickly would Shido see that weakness tomorrow?

How quickly would he kill Akira?

Akira closes the distance between them. Luck wouldn’t save him tomorrow, not as it had against the cognition today. But perhaps Goro could plan against it if he had enough information. 

Dragging in a breath, he says, “What are your cards?”

Akira stops at the question. He blinks at Goro once and then again.

“What you said you have yet to reveal. You know mine,” Goro continues. “You know about Loki and Lucifer. You know about Shido and my mother and all the things that I’ve done. But I don’t know anything about you.”

Predictably, it only takes a moment for Akira to adjust to the change in conversation. But it’s not his adaptability that strikes Goro now. It’s the shuttering of his gaze, it’s Akira retreating behind his usual placid wall that pricks at Goro. That wall had gradually crumbled in the bath, allowing Goro to see more and more of Akira, first his smile and then his laugh and then the desire that burned in his eyes. And then at the end, clear and tremulous but there-

Goro grits his teeth. This has to be done. He has to know. Otherwise all will be lost.

“You didn’t investigate me after we met?” Akira asks him now. 

“Of course I did. But your police record’s obviously a sham. What happened to you?”

Akira huffs out a short, humorless laugh. He looks at Goro a moment, and Goro feels the thrill of a revelation at hand, of another clue uncovered. Goro’s coveted them all, he’s devoured each and every one that he’s acquired from this brilliant, maddening boy.

And then Akira speaks and rips the ground from beneath Goro’s feet. “Shido happened to me.”

“What?”

“He’s why I was arrested.”

The intensity has returned, and Goro knows, he _knows_ , that Akira doesn’t manipulate in this way, that he doesn’t lie, not like this. Not like Goro has. Not like Shido does. Yet for a moment all he can do is stare, gobsmacked and incredulous. “How?”

Akira draws in a breath, perhaps to calm himself, perhaps to prepare for the next revelation. And then he begins. “I don’t know why he was in Inaba, but he was. It was late and I was on my way home. I heard a woman calling out for help so I went, and Shido was there. He was drunk.”

Akira pauses. Goro doesn’t need to look at the disgust that flashes in his eyes to know what he’ll say next. He’s known Shido long enough to put the disgusting pieces together himself.

“He was forcing himself on her.”

Despite anticipating it, the admission still tosses a burning match on top of Goro’s kindling rage. He turns away from Akira and clenches his hands so tight that his nails dig into his palms. Not for this woman. Goro doesn’t know her and he doesn’t care to know. But he knew his mother, he remembers everything she ever said to him about his degenerate father, how he used her, how he laughed at her when she revealed her pregancy. Goro remembers the look in her eyes when she had to send him to the bathhouse too many nights, he remembers the bruises that she sometimes bore after and the fragility of her smile as she tried to tell him that everything would be all right.

Like a whirlwind, his rage sweeps him up and hurls him about. He wants to hit something, break something, crush something. He wants to drive his sword deep into his father’s face and burn him to ash. Yet his father isn’t here. Akira is, and Goro can feel him watching, quietly like he had in the engine room as Goro lost control, as he succumbed to his rage and drove himself mad.

Swallowing hard, Goro tries to bring himself back under control. He draws in a stilted breath and exhales it slow. He does it again and again until his breathing evens out and he can finally force open his clenched hands. The effort takes longer than he wishes, far longer than it has in years, but Goro manages to steady himself enough to turn around.

When he does, he finds Akira staring at him like he anticipated, but there’s no trace of pity in his eyes, only a calm understanding that eases the tension even more in Goro. “You stopped him,” he says, and his voice is sharp but calm when he speaks.

Akira nods. “I tried to pull him away from her. He fell and hurt himself.” He pauses then and his jaw goes tight, a testament to the anger that simmers beneath his skin. His struggle for control is quicker than Goro’s, for, after a moment, he continues. “He blamed me, said that I assaulted him. And he forced the woman he’d been hurting into backing him up. The police must have realized who he was, too, because they accepted his story, no questions asked. After that, it was over.”

Goro remembers when Shido left Tokyo for a tour of outlying towns. He’d been trying to gather support for his upcoming bid for Prime Minister. He’d been angry upon his return, but Goro had never understood why, Shido stonewalling his few efforts to pry. He’d turned to his other cronies to fix the mess he’d gotten into. And fix it he did. Despite the slim size of the police file, the case against Akira had proceeded quickly. Probation and then expulsion and Akira’s path was set. You couldn’t claw your way out of that trash without a miracle. 

Goro understood that fact intimately. 

“That must have been frustrating,” he says, “having to watch his rise to power this past year, knowing how he destroyed your life.”

Surprisingly, Akira shakes his head. “I didn’t realize it was him until the day before we entered his palace. He came to Yongen-Jaya to campaign. We were trying to figure out his keywords, so I went to listen to him. That’s when I remembered.”

He trails off and his gaze grows distant. The blank wall of his expression slips further, and Goro watches the play of emotions across his face, the crease that forms between his brow and the flat line of his mouth.

“What is it?”

Akira shakes his head again, not to reject Goro’s question, but at whatever he’s musing about. “I thought for a while I had bad luck,” he says softly, “that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. But now I’m not so sure.” He looks at Goro again, and the breath catches in Goro’s chest at the intensity of his gaze. “Do you remember when you said you thought that fate had brought us together?” At Goro’s nod, Akira adds, “I think you might be right.”

“I only said that to rattle you, to find something that would.”

“Maybe so. But what are the odds I’d encounter Shido on that day and at that time? I wasn’t even supposed to work that night. I was filling in for a sick coworker. And then I end up here with Sojiro and Futaba, whose lives were ruined by Shido, too. And the day that I came here, the very hour that I arrived in Tokyo, I ended up in the Metaverse and awakened to Arsene. And that’s not even taking into account both of us being wild cards and how your life was ruined by Shido, too, and how our paths crossed.” Akira shakes his head a third time. “It’s too much for coincidence.”

Heart racing, Goro moves closer to him. “Do you hear yourself? Do you hear how absurd you sound?”

His irritation fails to break Akira’s interminable calm. “You said the same thing today. You said that you’d been chosen by someone, that they gave you your abilities for a reason.”

Goro barely restrains his snarl. “I think the events of today have established that my perspective of things wasn’t wholly accurate before now.”

“That doesn’t mean they were wholly inaccurate either. You’re smart. You’re observant. Even if you said what you said to rattle me, that doesn’t mean there’s not some truth in it.”

“Truth is nothing without proof. Do you have any at all?”

“Someone put that app on our phones.”

To that, Goro shakes his head. “That doesn’t mean fate or a higher power. As you revealed today, Futaba found a way to manipulate the app. It’s more than possible another person created it.”

“It’s possible,” Akira says. “But it’s not what happened.”

“How do you know?”

“I know because I know who put the app on our phones.”

The certainty in his voice gives Goro pause. It had been the great mystery of his life, how the app had appeared on his phone. He’d been fifteen and, one day, it was simply there, sweeping him to Mementos and to the shadow of his worst foster father, the one who had tried to beat Goro into obedience.

Trembling again, Goro closes the distance between them. “Who was it?”

“He says his name is Igor. He’s in charge of a place called the Velvet Room. He says that it exists between dreams and reality, between mind and matter.” 

It only takes a second for comprehension to dawn. “The Metaverse.” 

Akira nods again. “The night I awoke to Arsene I fell asleep here and woke up there. And do you remember the times before we went into Sae’s palace and Mementos, when I’d stare into space for a few minutes?” At Goro’s nod, Akira continues, “I wasn’t just staring. I was in the Velvet Room. The creepy bear? That’s Igor. He’s why I can hold so many persona and why I have some persona you’ve probably never seen before. He’s why I have equipment you can’t find anywhere else, too.”

As the explanation unfolds, anger sparks within Goro once more. He tries to stomp it out, but the memories of his first fumblings in the Metaverse, the times he nearly died before he figured out how to flee and fight, flash before him. “That’s… generous of him,” he manages after a moment.

“Maybe so, but maybe not.”

The uncertainty in Akira’s voice douses the rest of Goro’s rage. He’s never heard Akira uncertain before, not even when faced with death. “Why do you say that?” 

More uncertainty as Akira looks away. He lifts a hand and fiddles with the ends of his hair, and this rattles Goro more than his prior proclamation about fate. He waits, his hands clenched tight. The seconds slip by, time on tenterhooks as Akira tries to decide. Then after another moment, he lowers his hand and begins. 

“He says I’m a prisoner of fate and that ruin awaits because the world is distorted, but that I can stop it because I’m a trickster.” He pauses, and a frown creases his brow. “He said that I couldn’t do it alone though, that I had to form bonds with other people, people who could teach me things I could use in the Metaverse or people who can fight like I can.” He pauses again, for longer this time, and his jaw goes tight. Then his gaze cuts over to Goro. “But he never mentioned you.” 

Goro stiffens, and almost immediately Akira’s shaking his head. “I’m not accusing you,” he says. “You said you don’t know who gave you your abilities, and I believe you. It’s Igor. If he gave me the app, then he was probably the one who gave you yours, so he should have known about you, especially since you’ve been in the Metaverse so much longer than I have.”

Goro releases the breath that had caught in his chest. A foolish, telling gesture, the unease he had felt at the possibility of Akira doubting him. But why shouldn’t he doubt Goro? After everything he’s done. One desperate rescue didn’t wipe away all his misdeeds, all the lies that he’s told and the people that he’s killed.

And that, he thinks, is the answer.

“Maybe he knew,” he says, the words clipped and hard. “Maybe he knew about me, yet he chose to discard me. My actions haven’t been to avoid ruin, after all, but to bring it about.”

Akira’s shaking his head before Goro even finishes. “Then why didn’t he tell me about you as a warning? We had to learn about you from Madarame and Kaneshiro. No,” he says after a beat. “He knew about you. He just never told me. And I can’t understand why.”

He might not, but Goro does. He’s spent the past two years working for a man who exulted in his superiority, in manipulating and using people to achieve his wicked ends. “An ignorant pawn is a controllable pawn.” 

Goro doesn’t need to say anything more. He knows that Akira understands, the engine room and the cognition’s taunts about Goro and Shido fresh in both their minds. Then, Goro hadn’t thought that Akira understood. He’d thought that Akira was so different from himself, without the anger, without the loneliness, without the cage that ensnared him. He’d thought Akira’s heart flew free and easy, deftly navigating each trial that the world threw his way, keeping free of the muck that lurked at the bottom. 

He knows better now.

“It seems I was wrong about you,” he murmurs, his gaze drifting to take Akira in. “You’re not as free as I thought you were. It seems you’re also under the thumb of a tyrant.”

To anyone else, the comments might unsettle them, elicit dismay or maybe even anger, but surety returns to Akira instead, and he regards Goro with a steady gaze that makes Goro’s heart race. “It seems so.”

Goro leans closer to him, just past the bounds of propriety, and he sends Akira a sharp smile. “I don’t know about you, but I find myself growing tired of my cage.”

Akira answers his smile with one of his own, a sly twitch at the corners of his mouth, but a clear smile all the same. And Goro lets himself look at it. He lets himself look at it and at Akira, and he lets himself _want_. The desire has always been there, Goro realizes it now, not from first sight, nothing as ridiculous as that lie, but from the cafe in Kichijoji at least. Why else had Goro taken Akira to the Jazz Jin next? He’d been too swept up in his revenge to recognize it though, and too envious of Akira. Goro had only seen the inverse of himself, someone who flew as he fell, and while those oppositions exist, so too do the parallels.

“I was so blind about you,” he says as he eases back. 

Akira’s smile flickers and fades, a testament to his surprise. Goro drinks it in, the occasion truly a rare one with the normally inflappable Akira Kurusu.

“You spoke earlier of Loki’s distortion,” Goro continues after a moment, “yet Loki and Arsene are remarkably similar. Their coloring. Their silhouettes. Their masks.” 

Akira says nothing. But he watches Goro, and Goro exults in being the focus of that heavy gaze.

“Ours aren’t the only persona to wear masks, of course. Haru Okumura’s is only a mask. Yet her persona’s eyes are still visible. Ours are not. No one conceals in quite the same way we do.” 

This earns him another crack in that inscrutable wall, a slight widening of Akira’s eyes. 

“It infuriated me,” Goro continues, his pulse pounding as he stares, “my inability to comprehend you. You hide yourself so completely behind your glasses. Yet I’ve seen the truth of you now, what you keep locked up tight behind the garb of the gentleman thief.” 

“And what’s that?”

The slight breathlessness to Akira’s voice nearly makes Goro smile. Instead he leans in again and says, “You’re just as angry as I am.” 

“Of course I am. We all are.” 

Goro eases back. “True. Your team must be to have awakened as they have. But you’re different. If you weren’t, you would have formed an attack with one of them by now. But you didn’t. You only did with me.”

Akira doesn’t say anything. He regards Goro as he had in the bath when, for a moment, just one wild moment, Goro thought that Akira might kiss him. It wasn’t the first time he’d thought of the possibility. The thought had seized him at the cafe in Kichijoji, too, when Akira had stood from his chair and grabbed Goro’s hand and pulled him away from the table. For a moment, Goro had thought that Akira really would kiss him, that he’d use the ploy so common in films to distract Goro’s busybody fans. He hadn’t, but what he had done instead was worse, Akira standing too close to Goro as he threaded careful fingers through Goro’s hair, as he slid his ridiculous glasses onto Goro’s face. 

No one had touched Goro like that in years, yet Akira dared. 

And Goro let him.

“That works both ways, you know.” 

And somehow this feels like that did, like Akira grabbing his hand and pulling him away, pulling him along to something startling and unexpected. It feels like the ground Goro’s gained is about to slip beneath his feet and he’ll fall once again.

“How so?”

“Arsene’s not just similar to Loki. He’s similar to Lucifer too. Their wings. Their broken chains.” Akira pauses and regards Goro in the same way that Goro had regarded him, taking in each and every facet of his expression. “What does it say about you that you fight so seamlessly with a Phantom Thief?” 

Goro’s head spins. His nerves again crackle and pop. “Not a Phantom Thief. You.”

“I thought we are what we do.” Goro narrows his eyes as Akira throws his own words back in his face, but his irritation fails to check Akira. It emboldens him instead, prompting him to say, his voice a mesmerizing murmur that winds its way up and around Goro, “Who are you now, now that you’ve fought beside me and saved my life?” 

Goro closes his eyes at the question, at the rapt way Akira stares as he waits for a response. Who is he now? Goro doesn’t know. He’s cycled through so many selves over the years, he’s swung so wildly on the pendulum between pleasant and dreadful that he doesn’t know anymore. He’s his mother’s son and his father’s, too. He’s the Detective Prince and the Black Mask. He’s Robin Hood and Loki and he’s Lucifer, too. 

He’s the one who wants to kiss Akira Kurusu, and he’s the one who killed him.

Like a bullet to the heart, the last thought shatters the burgeoning moment. Goro killed Akira. He killed him, yet here Akira stands, his foolish heart on his reckless sleeve. Not one of his idiotic team thought to stop him from doing this, from bringing Goro here to talk. Neither did Sojiro. He let Goro walk back into his cafe knowing full well what Goro has done to Akira.

It’s as Goro thought.

The only one who can save Akira from Goro is Goro himself.

Clenching his hands, Goro draws in a shaky breath and then he takes two steps back from Akira. “I’m the person who killed you. Whatever else I am or could be, I will always be that.” 

Akira doesn’t let him retreat. He presses forward, immediately closing the distance between them again. “So we’re chained to our pasts, that’s it, that’s all?” Akira doesn’t wait for him to respond, instead shaking his head. “I don’t believe that. I _can’t_ believe it, not with everything I’ve seen.” 

Goro lifts his chin. “So you think someone like Shido deserves a second chance? After all that he’s done?”

“You’re not Shido. And it’s never been about giving people second chances. It’s about making them realize the awful things that they’ve done and to stop them from hurting anyone else. You already did that. You realized that today.” 

“Only after you defeated me. How is that any different from what you’ll be doing tomorrow with Shido or from what you’ve already done?”

“Because I didn’t take anything from you, Goro!” 

Akira’s voice rings throughout the attic. He’s not angry, not like he was at the cognition earlier, but he’s not like anything Goro has seen before either, his control fraying and Akira clinging desperately to the last thread. He turns from Goro and walks away, only a few steps, just far enough to give Akira space to collect himself. Goro watches as he bows his head, as he runs a hand through his hair, as he digs his fingers into his curls before he lets his hand flop back down to his side. Then he tilts his head up toward the ceiling, and the breath that he drags in drags at Goro, it digs claws into him and wrenches at his worthless heart.

The silence persists another few seconds before Akira speaks. “There was no palace to navigate. No treasure to steal. You recognized your distorted thoughts, and you changed your heart on your own. It’s completely different from Shido and from anyone else with a palace or any shadow that we’ve fought in Mementos. And the fact that you can’t see that is…” 

Akira shakes his head. He’s quiet a long moment. Then he draws in another breath and exhales it slowly. As he does, his shoulders set, and Goro already knows what he’s going to see when Akira turns back around. Yet the expectation of that resolve doesn’t diminish its power. Goro can only stare when Akira turns, as helplessly as he stared as Akira drew soft fingers through his hair in a dim hallway of a cafe in Kichijoji, as helplessly as he stared as Akira looked at him in the bath and said that his bond, his heart, his soul, were angels.

“Do you know what it is like?” Akira asks. He starts toward Goro, his steps measured and slow. “It’s like what’s happened to Ryuji and Ann and Yusuke. You couldn’t have known about Ryuji and Ann. They’d already changed by the time we started Sae’s palace. But Yusuke?” Akira says when he reaches Goro. “You must have noticed that he doesn’t have Goemon anymore. And it’s because he’s changed. Because he’s learned from his past. They all have. And you have, too, and it’s-”

Goro averts his gaze. “Kurusu-”

“Don’t. Don’t turn away from this. Don’t deny it.”

“I’m not.”

“You are.”

The claim hangs suspended between them, like the moment does, and like the world, and then in the stillness Akira moves. Goro gasps at the feel of Akira’s fingers against his face, at the soft touch of his palm to Goro’s cheek. He eases Goro’s head back around until they’re looking at each other again. Goro expects him to lower his hand then, his goal achieved, but Akira doesn’t, and Goro hates and wants that lingering touch in equal measure. 

“You say I hide myself?” Akira begins. “So do you. Even now, even after you came here for an honest conversation. I know you feel something for me. Avoiding that will accomplish nothing.”

Goro rears back at the claim, at _his_ claim being thrown in his face once again. “Avoiding it?” he hisses. “I’m not avoiding it. Why the hell do you think I’m here if I’m avoiding it? Why the hell do you think I saved you if I’m avoiding it? I know perfectly well what I feel for you, and _that_ is the problem! You make me feel more than anyone else has in my life, and I still killed you!” 

And so it spills from him, the essential truths of himself, as fundamental to him as they are contradictory. He wants Akira, he wanted him even when he walked into that interrogation room, yet he wanted his vengeance more. Understanding the stupidity of the latter now doesn’t erase its existence, and neither does admitting the reality of the former. 

If only he had met Akira earlier.

Goro grits his teeth at the thought. It’s a foolish wish that he’d thought he’d buried in the engine room. Shaking his head, he tries to walk past Akira, to leave before things unraveled even further than they already have, but Akira grabs his hand and holds him fast as he says, “And you make me feel more than anyone else has in my life, and I still let you kill me.”

Goro whips his head around to look at Akira and immediately wishes that he hadn’t. There’s no mask guarding Akira anymore. Goro can see everything Akira feels as he looks at him, all of the frustration, all the yearning, all the inexplicable guilt.

“What?” 

“You killed me so you could get to Shido. I let you kill me so I could get to Shido. I knew what you were planning. We bugged your phone and I heard you plan to kill me, and I still went along with it. I didn’t try to talk to you. I didn’t try to help you.”

Goro shakes his head. “It wouldn’t have worked. I wouldn’t have listened to you. I _couldn’t_ have listened to you,” he amends after a beat. “Not as I was then.”

“And now? Will you listen to me now?” Akira tightens his grip on Goro’s hand, and Goro feels desperation and determination in the hold. “I care about you, and I’m tired of not being able to feel it because of fate or necessity. I don’t want to have to sacrifice myself anymore in the pursuit of justice, and I don’t want you to have to destroy yourself for it either.”

Goro rips his hand away. “I’m not the one who’s going to be destroyed, you fool! You are!” 

Akira’s eyes go wide at the proclamation.

Goro presseses on, relentlessly, ruthlessly. He has to make Akira understand. He has to make him see reason, see the truth of things as they are, not as they wish them to be. “You saw how quickly the cognition figured me out. You saw how it tried to use that against us and how close it came to succeeding! You nearly died again, and that was just against one of Shido’s minions. What do you think will happen tomorrow when Shido figures it out?”

The question is supposed to startle. It’s supposed to make Akira think. But like everything else in Goro’s life, he fails in this endeavor, too. There’s no fear in Akira’s eyes at his probable death, no unsettled understanding. Instead, his expression softens. So too does his voice and if Goro had to give a word to describe both, the only word he could choose is tender. 

“Chaining yourself to your fear will hurt you just as much as chaining yourself to your rage did.” 

Goro takes a step back. “I’m not afraid.”

“You are. You’re afraid that Shido will take someone else that you care about.”

The words hit Goro like a knife to the chest. They rip into him, pry him open, lay bare his bloody heart. Before he can even begin to fathom a response, Akira continues. 

“You must have watched me die in the interrogation room, to make sure that it was done. And then the cognition made you try again, right after you realized that you don’t hate me, that you maybe even care about me. And when that didn’t work, it tried. It shot me right in front of you, and I could have died again. And Shido will try tomorrow. You tried and the cognition did and Shido will. One of them has to stick, right? My luck has to run out someday. That’s what you’re thinking, isn’t it?”

Goro doesn’t respond. Instead, he turns his head away and closes his eyes.

Akira continues, relentless, ruthless in his tenderness. “It’s not luck, Goro. If I were on my own, I would have died and long before Sae’s palace. But I haven’t been alone, and I don’t want you to be either. You’ve been alone for so long. Because that’s how it should be, right? You’re evil, the bastard son of a whore. Who could ever care about you? Who _should_ ever care about you?”

Goro clenches his trembling hands.

“I do. I care about you. Knowing full well who you are and what you’ve done, I care about you.”

And he does. Goro knows that he does. He has from the time he stood up and pulled Goro from a table just to give him a moment’s peace. And from the times he listened to Goro talk in Leblanc, in the baths, and late in the evening on the phone. He knows from the time that Goro looked at him in Leblanc and said _Welcome home_ and he responded _Honey, I’m home_. And from the time he followed Goro to Mementos and dueled him simply because Goro had asked. And from the time he looked at Goro and said _It’s nice to meet you_ and _It’s your fight, Crow_ , and from the time he told Noir to cure Goro first and the time he told the cognition not to underestimate Crow and that, if he fell, they would bring him back. He knows from the time that he did, Akira bringing Goro back to Leblanc and making him coffee and making him eat and bringing him to the baths just because they felt nice. He knows from the times when Goro had snapped, when his princely show had faltered and his true self came sneering out, and Akira didn’t look away, rather he looked at Goro and smiled.

For so long, Goro had wanted someone to see him and to care. He’d broken himself to achieve it, he’d buried the dark parts of himself beneath a pleasant smile, he created an entire new persona for people to love, and he’d destroyed himself to achieve it, he’d killed the boy that he’d been for a scrap of fatherly pride, for the chance to prove his worth. He had to because who could love him otherwise, who could ever want him, an orphan, a bastard, a disgrace?

Goro opens his eyes.

Akira stares back at him, and Goro shivers at the look in his eyes, at the absolute certainty in his voice as he says, “And for the record, I don’t care if Shido knows how I feel about you because he’s going down tomorrow and there’s not a damn thing he can do to stop it.”

Goro’s moving before he’s fully aware of it, reaching out and grabbing Akira by the coat, but he doesn’t have to drag Akira in because Akira’s already moving, too, already closing the distance between them. Their kiss is a collison, a thunderclap after a lightning strike. Akira grabs Goro’s waist and winds an arm around his back, and Goro lifts a hand and digs his fingers into the stormcloud that Akira calls his hair. Goro presses the advantage when Akira gasps, tilting his head and deepening the kiss, and his blood rushes at the slick slide of his tongue against Akira’s and his heart pounds at the way Akira clutches at his jacket. Only the thrill of battle compares, and even that pales in comparison, Goro alone then and with Akira now. Improbably, impossibly, he is. The world has taken so much from him, and Goro’s let it, he’s given himself away and compromised himself and traded the few good things that he’s ever had for a misbegotten chance at revenge.

No longer.

Goro won’t lose himself any longer, and he won’t lose Akira either, fate and fathers be damned.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have ideas about a continuation. I set up more with Shido and Igor than I originally planned. If you're interested in reading more, just let me know.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the line I quoted from Paradise Lost: "The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of hell and a hell of heaven." Goro's new Persona is a mix of [Guillaume Geefs' statue "La Genie du Mal"](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_g%C3%A9nie_du_mal) and [Alexandre Cabanel's painting "Fallen Angel"](https://arthistoryproject.com/artists/alexandre-cabanel/fallen-angel/).
> 
> Also, feel free to [follow me on Tumblr](https://astreetcarnamedwynn.tumblr.com) too, if you're so inclined.


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